Letters

Epistulae

Reading pages: 1.1–8.1 · 9.1–15.2 · 16.1–21.6 · 22.1–23.8 · 24.1–26.6 · 27.1–28.5 · 29.1–31.9 · 32.1–34.6 · 35.1–36.16 · 36.17–38.3 · 39.1–43.11 · 43.12–43.27 · 44.1–46.1 · 47.1–51.5 · 52.1–55.2 · 55.3–55.23 · 55.24–58.3 · 59.1–67.3 · 68.1–72.5 · 73.1–75.7 · 75.8–75.22 · 76.1–79.1 · 80.1–82.17 · 82.18–82.36 · 83.1–87.10 · 88.1–90.1 · 91.1–93.5 · 93.6–93.24 · 93.25–93.46 · 93.47–94.8 · 95.1–97.4 · 98.1–101.4 · 102.1–102.24 · 102.25–103.4 · 104.1–104.17 · 105.1–107.1 · 108.1–108.15 · 108.16–110.6 · 111.1–117.1 · 118.1–118.15 · 118.16–118.34 · 119.1–120.13 · 120.14–120.20 · 121.1–123.1 · 124.1–130.3 · 130.4–130.24 · 130.25–135.2 · 136.1–136.3 · 137.1–137.20 · 138.1–138.20 · 139.1–140.18 · 140.19–140.26 · 140.27–140.48 · 140.49–140.67 · 140.68–140.85 · 141.1–142.4 · 143.1–144.3 · 145.1–146.1 · 147.1–147.15 · 147.16–147.33 · 147.34–147.51 · 147.52–149.1 · 149.2–149.23 · 149.24–153.11 · 153.12–154.3 · 155.1–157.5 · 157.6–157.21 · 157.22–157.41 · 158.1–160.4 · 161.1–163.1 · 164.1–164.22 · 165.1–166.17 · 166.18–166.28 · 167.1–168.1 · 169.1–170.10 · 171.1–176.5 · 177.1–178.3 · 179.1–181.9 · 182.1–185.7 · 185.8–185.26 · 185.27–185.49 · 185.50–186.23 · 186.24–187.5 · 187.6–187.28 · 187.29–187.41 · 188.1–189.7 · 190.1–190.26 · 191.1–194.8 · 194.9–194.34 · 194.35–195.1 · 196.1–197.5 · 198.1–199.17 · 199.18–199.39 · 199.40–203.1 · 204.1–204.9 · 205.1–207.1 · 208.1–210.2 · 211.1–212.1 · 213.1–215.8 · 216.1–217.15 · 217.16–219.3 · 220.1–224.3 · 225.1–225.9 · 226.1–227.1 · 228.1–230.6 · 231.1–234.8 · 235.1–238.8 · 238.9–238.29 · 239.1–242.5 · 243.1–247.4 · 248.1–259.5 · 260.1–264.3 · 265.1–270.1

1.1Augustine tells Hermogenianus that he imitated rather than refuted the Academics, whose concealment of truth suited their age but now discourages the search for truth.
1.2In the past scepticism spurred people to search harder; now it gives the lazy an excuse to stop thinking.
1.3Augustine asks Hermogenianus to judge the end of the third book of Against the Academics and says his real gain was freedom from despair of finding the truth.
2.1Augustine tells Zenobius that, though the mind should love only what is unchanging, he still longs for his absent friend, and asks him to finish their discussion by letter.
3.1Augustine, writing to Nebridius, recounts how he debated with himself in bed whether Nebridius was right to call him happy.
3.2Augustine asks whether happiness lies in knowing natural philosophy and reflects on infinite divisibility and the contrast between intelligible and sensible number.
3.3Augustine notes that mirrors can shrink images but never enlarge them, and leaves the puzzle to sleep on.
3.4In a short dialogue with himself Augustine argues that the soul is better than the body, that truth lies in the understanding, and that happiness is not in sensible pleasure.
3.5Augustine closes by asking Nebridius about the correct passive infinitive of cupio and similar verbs and begs for a longer letter.
4.1Augustine tells Nebridius that progress in distinguishing the sensible from the intelligible is real but gradual, like growing up.
4.2Augustine says he is refreshed by the argument that what the mind understands is more real than what the eyes see, and asks Nebridius to check whether he still owes him letters.
5.1Nebridius writes to Augustine regretting that civic business at Thagaste keeps him from the quiet life of devotion to God, and invites him to his country estate.
6.1Nebridius praises Augustine's letters and argues that every memory involves an image in the imagination.
6.2Nebridius asks whether the imagination has its images from itself, merely prompted by the senses.
7.1Augustine replies to Nebridius that memory is not always of things that have passed away and not always bound to images.
7.2Augustine defends Plato's doctrine of recollection and argues that there can be memory of eternal things without images.
7.3Augustine argues that the soul cannot have had images of bodies before using the senses, since then dreamers and madmen would see more truly than the waking and sane.
7.4Augustine divides images into three kinds: those of things perceived, things supposed or invented, and things reasoned such as numbers and figures.
7.5Augustine argues that the soul did not have such false images before it was joined to the body and the senses.
7.6Augustine explains that we imagine unseen things through the soul's power to add and take away from images received through the senses.
7.7Augustine argues that many motions of the soul occur without images and urges Nebridius to break off all friendship with the images of the senses.
8.1Nebridius asks Augustine how heavenly powers send dreams to sleepers, since he cannot send dreams to a friend and the body itself seems to cause dreams.
9.1Augustine consoles Nebridius in his loneliness, telling him to turn to his own mind and to God, where friends are present without bodily images.
9.2Augustine says the question how higher powers or demons put thoughts and dreams into us needs a book, but offers some hints.
9.3Augustine suggests that motions of the mind leave traces in the body which beings of air or ether can perceive and stir, producing thoughts and dreams.
9.4Augustine illustrates with anger and bile how what the mind produces in the body can in turn move the mind.
9.5Augustine refers Nebridius back to his letter on images and memory to explain how we picture bodies we have never seen.
10.1Augustine answers Nebridius's complaint that they do not live together, weighing the difficulties of travel, Nebridius's mother, and his own duties and poor health.
10.2Augustine argues that a life of constant travel and business is incompatible with the leisure needed to prepare for death and to reach a fearless joy.
10.3Augustine appeals to Nebridius's own experience of inner peace in God and asks him to help plan how they can live together.
11.1Augustine, relieved by Nebridius's letter about living together, asks him to stop sending new questions until the old ones are answered.
11.2Augustine takes up Nebridius's question why, if the works of the Trinity are inseparable, the incarnation is attributed to the Son alone.
11.3Augustine argues from the threefold structure of every being (existence, form, persistence) that the persons of the Trinity act inseparably.
11.4Augustine explains that the incarnation is attributed to the Son because it gave us a rule and example of life, form being proper to the Son, while the Father is known through the Son and the delight of abiding in that knowledge is the gift of the Spirit.
12.1Augustine tells Nebridius which questions have been answered and recalls briefly why the incarnation is attributed to the Son.
13.1Augustine tells Nebridius that he has had no leisure for their old questions, but sends what he worked out during the night.
13.2Augustine argues that the question of a subtle body or 'vehicle' of the soul cannot be settled, since it is neither intelligible nor perceptible to us.
13.3Augustine raises the objection that the existence of a body can be known by the understanding even if the body itself is perceived only by sense.
13.4Augustine concludes that, since we cannot perceive such a body, its existence cannot be known by us and the question does not concern us.
14.1Augustine tells Nebridius that he is answering his latest letter first, since he lacks the leisure for a long reply to the earlier ones.
14.2Augustine answers Nebridius that the sun shares many actions with the stars, and that no two bodies, not even twins walking together, can ever perform exactly the same movement.
14.3Augustine compares the sun's unique brightness among the stars with the unique greatness of the man Christ, whom God assumed in a way unlike any other saint.
14.4Augustine suggests that the divine Wisdom, the Son, contains the idea of man in general for creation and the ideas of individual men in the order of time, as a square requires the idea of four angles.
15.1Augustine writes to Romanianus on parchment for lack of paper, mentions a work he has written on the Catholic religion, and leaves him free to take the books he wants.
15.2Augustine warns Romanianus not to trust his present prosperity and urges him to use temporal goods faithfully while seeking eternal ones.
16.1Maximus of Madaura, a pagan grammarian, writes to Augustine that the many gods are names for the powers of the one supreme God.
16.2Maximus mocks the Christian veneration of African martyrs with Punic names and their tombs.
16.3Maximus challenges Augustine to show plainly who the Christian God is, contrasting pagan public worship with Christian secrecy.
16.4Maximus withdraws from the debate, citing Virgil, and closes with a pagan blessing.
17.1Augustine replies to Maximus that his comparison of Olympus with the gods in the forum of Madaura is a joke, and warns him against calling such gods members of the one God.
17.2Augustine answers Maximus's mockery of Punic martyrs' names by explaining the meaning of Namphamo, citing Virgil, and pointing to absurd Roman gods.
17.3Augustine turns Virgil against Maximus, noting that Virgil and Cicero present the gods as having once been men.
17.4Augustine answers the charge of Christian secrecy by pointing to the secret rites of Liber and the frenzied public processions of Madaura's leading men.
17.5Augustine invites Maximus to a serious discussion and states that Catholic Christians worship no dead person and no creature, but only the one God who made all things.
18.1Augustine asks Celestinus to return his books against the Manichaeans with his opinion of them.
18.2Augustine sets out three natures: body, changeable in place and time; soul, changeable in time only; and God, unchangeable, to whom the soul must turn through faith in Christ.
19.1Augustine sends Gaius, a seeker not yet a Catholic, his writings, telling him that whatever is true in them is God's gift and whatever is false is Augustine's own.
20.1Augustine writes to Antoninus, a layman, by the hand of a friend who is visiting him, and thanks him for his letter.
20.2Augustine tells Antoninus that his love for goodness in others profits him even if they fall short, and asks for his prayers.
20.3Augustine greets Antoninus's child and urges him to lead his wife, who is outside the Catholic communion, to the Catholic faith by reading and conversation.
21.1Augustine, newly ordained presbyter at Hippo, tells Bishop Valerius that church office is easy if done carelessly but most difficult and blessed if done rightly, and that he was forced into it unprepared.
21.2Augustine explains the tears he shed at his ordination: he had criticized clergy before knowing the difficulty of their work and overestimated his own strength.
21.3Augustine asks Valerius for leave to study the Scriptures, which he now sees he needs in order to minister the sacrament and the word.
21.4Augustine says he knows what is needed for his own salvation but not how to minister it to others, and asks for time until Easter to study the Scriptures.
21.5Augustine imagines Christ the judge asking why he would travel for a year to defend church property but would not take time to learn to tend Christ's field.
21.6Augustine begs Valerius by Christ to grant the time he asks and to pray for him.
22.1Augustine, presbyter at Hippo, answers Aurelius, bishop of Carthage, thanking him for his kindness toward Alypius and the community of brothers.
22.2Augustine hopes that Aurelius and church councils can correct the disorders of the African church, especially drunkenness and strife, which are tolerated while sexual sin is punished.
22.3Augustine complains that drunken feasts are tolerated, even held daily at the martyrs' shrines, while sexual sin is rightly punished by exclusion from communion.
22.4Augustine urges Aurelius to abolish the feasts, as most churches overseas have done, by the authority of a council or by the example of Carthage.
22.5Augustine advises that the custom be removed gently, by teaching and admonition rather than threats, since a multitude must be persuaded.
22.6Augustine proposes that the feasts at the tombs be replaced by modest offerings for the dead given freely to all, with money given to the poor.
22.7Augustine says strife and jealousy, born of pride and love of praise, are worse among the clergy, and that a cleric should accept honour only for the good of others.
22.8Augustine reflects on the difficulty of not delighting in praise, confessing that he himself is often wounded in this struggle.
22.9Augustine asks Aurelius to pray for him, to send the aged Saturninus to visit, and thanks him for the land given to the brothers.
23.1Augustine, writing to the Donatist bishop Maximinus, explains why he addresses him as lord, most beloved, honourable and brother, though not as his bishop.
23.2Augustine tells Maximinus that he heard he did not rebaptize Catholics, but now hears that he has rebaptized a Catholic deacon of Mutugenna, which he hopes is untrue.
23.3Augustine asks Maximinus to reply openly, to be read in church, and urges him, if he does not rebaptize, to say so freely without fear of his colleagues.
23.4Augustine argues that the one baptism in the name of the Trinity must be recognized wherever it is found, comparing it with circumcision, which was never repeated even for a Samaritan becoming a Jew.
23.5Augustine urges Maximinus not to fear his own councils and hopes for peace, so that Christian families divided between the two communions may share the table of Christ.
23.6Augustine proposes that both sides drop the old charges about Macarius and the Circumcellions and that their letters be read publicly, so that the people may learn the difference between the Catholic Church and schism.
23.7Augustine promises to read the letters only after the soldiers have left, since he does not wish anyone to be forced into communion, and asks that the Circumcellions' violence also cease.
23.8Augustine explains that he wrote in his bishop's absence because the matter was urgent, and closes with a prayer for peace.
24.1Paulinus of Nola writes to Alypius, bishop of Thagaste, rejoicing in a friendship formed by God before they had met.
24.2Paulinus thanks Alypius for five books of Augustine against the Manichaeans, sends greetings to the clergy and monks, and praises Alypius's ascetic life amid his pastoral work.
24.3Paulinus reports that he has had a copy made of Eusebius's Chronicle, borrowed from Domnio at Rome, to be sent to Alypius through Aurelius of Carthage.
24.4Paulinus asks Alypius to tell him his life story and whether he too was brought to the faith by Ambrose, and tells of his own baptism at Bordeaux and forced ordination at Barcelona.
24.5Paulinus describes himself as a recent convert and asks Alypius for his prayers and letters.
24.6Paulinus closes with greetings to the African churches and monasteries and sends Alypius a loaf as a sign of unity.
25.1Paulinus of Nola writes to Augustine praising his five books against the Manichaeans, received through Alypius.
25.2Paulinus asks Augustine for further writings against other heretics and describes his conversion from worldly learning.
25.3Paulinus, older in years but young in faith, asks Augustine to be his father in spiritual learning and to support him with his prayers.
25.4Paulinus describes his renunciation of wealth, says he has not yet attained what he desires, and rejoices that God has made him a fellow cleric with Augustine.
25.5Paulinus commends his friendship to Augustine through Alypius, sends greetings, and sends a loaf as a sign of unity.
26.1Augustine writes to his former pupil Licentius, reporting on a request he made for him and turning to the state of his soul.
26.2Augustine warns Licentius that in fleeing the bonds of wisdom he is binding himself to the harsher bonds of worldly ambition.
26.3Augustine anticipates Licentius's mocking reply and says he will keep exhorting him even if he does not respond.
26.4Augustine contrasts Licentius's care for correct verse with his neglect of an ordered life, and takes up his poem's line 'only bid me' by bidding him give himself to God.
26.5Augustine quotes Christ's invitation to take his yoke and holds up Paulinus of Nola as an example of a gifted man who gave up worldly honour for Christ.
26.6Augustine urges Licentius to give his golden talent to Christ rather than to his lusts, and appends Licentius's own poem, in which he asks Augustine's help with Varro, longs for their days together in Italy, and asks for his books on music.
27.1Augustine's first letter to Paulinus of Nola: he grieves that he has not seen the friend whose soul he already knows through his letter.
27.2Augustine praises Paulinus's letter, his renunciation of the world, and his wife Therasia, now living with him in spiritual partnership.
27.3Augustine says he cannot believe Paulinus's praise of him but gladly believes his love, and gives himself wholly to him, asking for his prayers.
27.4Augustine introduces the bearer, his friend Romanianus, warns Paulinus not to trust his praise, and asks him to pray for his faults, since whatever is good in his books is God's.
27.5Augustine says the bearer is a relative of Alypius, promises to write Alypius's story himself, and commends the bearer to Paulinus's spiritual counsel.
27.6Augustine commends to Paulinus Romanianus's son Licentius, whose poem and Augustine's letter (letter 26) show his danger, and asks Paulinus to correct Augustine's own writings.
28.1Augustine's first letter to Jerome: he says he knows Jerome through his writings and through Alypius, and commends the bearer Profuturus.
28.2Augustine asks Jerome to translate the Greek commentators on Scripture, but not to make new Latin versions from the Hebrew, except with critical signs showing differences from the Septuagint.
28.3Augustine objects to Jerome's commentary on Galatians, which explains the clash between Paul and Peter as a staged pretence, arguing that admitting any lie in Scripture would destroy its authority.
28.4Augustine argues that if Paul could lie in rebuking Peter, heretics could claim his teaching on marriage was also a lie, and that Paul himself treats falsehood about God as a crime.
28.5Augustine asks Jerome to reinterpret the texts used to justify useful lies, and asks him to read and frankly criticize the writings Profuturus brings.
29.1Augustine, presbyter at Hippo, writes to Alypius to report how the Lord answered their prayers concerning the people of Hippo.
29.2Augustine reports that, when the people of Hippo protested against the banning of the festival of 'Gladness', he preached on Christ's saying about dogs and swine.
29.3At the beginning of Lent Augustine preached on Christ's cleansing of the temple, arguing that he would far more drive out drunken feasts.
29.4Augustine reminded the people that Israel feasted in drunkenness only once, before the golden calf, and urged them not to do as Christians what Israel did for an idol.
29.5Augustine read the people Paul's lists of sins that exclude from the kingdom, including drunkenness, and his rebuke of feasting at the Lord's supper, arguing that no banquets belong in the church.
29.6Augustine read the people Paul's lists of the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit, asking how Christians could be known by the fruit of drunkenness.
29.7Augustine appealed to the people by Christ's passion and by Valerius's love for them, warned them of God's chastening, and ended in tears shared with the congregation.
29.8When some still asked why the custom was now forbidden, the objectors came to Augustine before the service and were persuaded, and he answered 'Why now?' with 'Even now'.
29.9Augustine explained that the feasts at martyrs' shrines had been tolerated after the persecutions to ease the conversion of pagans, but must now be given up.
29.10Augustine answered the example of drinking at St Peter's in Rome by reading Peter's own letter against drunkenness, and invited the people to a midday service of readings and psalms.
29.11In the afternoon the crowd grew; Augustine contrasted their spiritual feast with the drinking in the Donatists' basilica, and the day ended with evening prayer and hymns.
29.12Augustine asks for prayers, reports that Circumcellions have broken the altar of the Catholic church at Asna, and closes.
30.1Paulinus of Nola writes again to Augustine, since his first letter seems not to have arrived.
30.2Paulinus says that his love for Augustine, born from reading his anti-Manichaean works, rests on their membership of the one body of Christ.
30.3Paulinus longs to see Augustine in the flesh and commends to him the bearers Romanus and Agilis.
31.1Augustine writes to Paulinus and Therasia that the delay of his first letter has brought him the gain of their second.
31.2Augustine says the bearers Romanus and Agilis were a living letter, through whom he learned more of Paulinus and Therasia than any page could tell.
31.3Augustine describes his reluctance to let the bearers return and takes up Paulinus's own words about their unity in one body.
31.4Augustine tells Paulinus that Valerius has made him his fellow bishop, and begs Paulinus and Therasia to come to Africa.
31.5Augustine wants Paulinus and Therasia in Africa as a visible example, since their renunciation of great wealth fulfils gladly what the rich young man heard with sadness.
31.6Augustine says the couple's renunciation is the glory of Christ, an example to men and women alike, which they should not hide.
31.7Augustine commends the boy Vetustinus, sends his three books On Free Will, and again commends Romanianus and his son Licentius.
31.8Augustine asks Paulinus for his work against the pagans and for Ambrose's books against those who claimed Christ learned from Plato.
31.9Augustine sends greetings from Severus of Milevis and the brothers, and a loaf of bread, to Paulinus and Therasia.
32.1Paulinus writes to Romanianus at Rome with the news, just received from Africa, that Augustine and his friends are now all bishops.
32.2Paulinus rejoices that Augustine was made co-bishop with the living Valerius, an unusual arrangement, and sees in it God's work against the Donatists and Manichaeans.
32.3Paulinus hopes Licentius will hear Augustine's call, sends five loaves to Romanianus and Licentius, and turns to address Licentius.
32.4Paulinus urges Licentius to follow Augustine, his spiritual father and mother, so as to become a true consul and pontiff in Christ.
32.5Paulinus addresses Licentius in prose and in elegiac verse, urging him to leave Rome and worldly ambition, take Christ's yoke, and follow Augustine and his kinsman Alypius.
33.1Augustine writes to Proculeianus, Donatist bishop of Hippo, explaining that he honours him as a man of peaceable mind, though not his schism.
33.2Augustine welcomes Proculeianus's reported willingness to confer before good men about the origin of the schism.
33.3Augustine asks Proculeianus to excuse the frankness of Evodius in their discussion, since honest correction is better than flattery.
33.4Augustine proposes either a recorded conference before chosen witnesses or a private exchange of letters later read to both congregations.
33.5Augustine laments that the schism divides Christian households and that bishops who settle worldly disputes cannot agree about Christ himself.
33.6Augustine appeals to Proculeianus's reputed kindness to agree to a peaceful discussion for the sake of the people.
34.1Augustine writes to Eusebius, an official at Hippo, that he seeks no forced conversions but only the open declaration of the truth.
34.2Augustine reports a young man who beat his mother, threatened to kill her, and was received and rebaptized by the Donatists.
34.3Augustine imagines the young man's reasoning in going over to the Donatists and warns that he may now carry out his threat against his mother.
34.4Augustine says he cannot be silent, and that he had the crime entered in the public records so that no one could say he invented it.
34.5Augustine asks Eusebius to find out from Proculianus whether he authorized his presbyter's statement, and accepts his proposal of a conference with ten witnesses from each side.
34.6Augustine offers that, if Proculianus fears his learning, the unlettered Catholic bishop Samsucius of Turris will debate him instead.
35.1Augustine tells Eusebius that he asked him not to judge but only to put a question to Proculianus, and that Proculianus now knows of the matricidal young man and should exclude him.
35.2Augustine reports a deposed Catholic subdeacon, Primus, who was rebaptized by the Donatists with two nuns and now roams with the Circumcellions, and asks that Proculianus exclude him.
35.3Augustine contrasts the Catholic practice of receiving degraded Donatist clergy only as penitents with the Donatist rebaptism of disciplined Catholics, who must declare themselves pagans.
35.4Augustine reports that, though he forbade a Catholic father to force his Donatist daughter back, a Donatist presbyter publicly abused him as a traditor and persecutor.
35.5Augustine asks Eusebius to pass these complaints to Proculianus and report his answer.
36.1Augustine answers the young presbyter Casulanus, apologizing for not replying to his first letter.
36.2Augustine answers that fasting on Saturday is not unlawful in itself, but that where Scripture is silent the custom of the church is to be followed without contention.
36.3Augustine says that the Roman writer's tract, by equating not fasting with drunkenness, insults the whole church and even the Romans on the days they do not fast.
36.4Augustine objects that the tract calls all Eastern and most Western Christians, who eat on Saturday, carnal, Judaizing and enslaved to the belly.
36.5Augustine argues that the Sabbath signified rest and joy, that the law said nothing about eating or fasting on it, and that Christ's words on fasting do not concern the Sabbath.
36.6Augustine points out that on the same Sabbath the disciples both ate and plucked grain, suggesting that both Sabbath rest and Sabbath fasting are not binding.
36.7Augustine replies that the Pharisee in the parable was faulted for his pride, not for fasting twice a week.
36.8Augustine notes that one can surpass the Pharisee's fasting without fasting on Saturday or Sunday, as many monks do, yet the tract still condemns them.
36.9Augustine shows that the tract's demand for fasting six days a week condemns even the Roman church, where few fast so often.
36.10Augustine argues that the tract's reasoning would make Saturday holier than the Lord's day.
36.11Augustine mocks the tract's author, who condemns Saturday meals yet calls for a Sunday 'alogia', a feast beyond reason.
36.12Augustine concludes that the Lord's day is above the Sabbath because of the resurrection, and that eating or fasting is good or bad according to the faith of the one who does it.
36.13Augustine answers the argument from Moses's forty-day fast by noting that it included Sundays as well as Saturdays, as did Christ's.
36.14Augustine says the tract confuses moderate Saturday meals with luxury and implies that eating on the Lord's day is sinful.
36.15Augustine shows that the scriptural texts the tract cites against feasting concern sexual sin, idolatry and drunkenness, not eating on Saturday.
36.16Augustine dismisses the tract's examples of Elijah, Daniel and the three young men as irrelevant to fasting on Saturday.
36.17Augustine explains that Paul's saying that the kingdom of God is not food and drink concerns scruples about foods, not fasting on Saturday.
36.18Augustine answers the tract's appeal to Tobit and to the 'sacrifice of praise' by noting that praise is offered every day, especially in the fifty days after Easter when no one fasts.
36.19Augustine notes that the tract allows a sober Sunday meal, and that the Roman church itself eats on three consecutive days each week.
36.20Augustine says the tract's 'woe to those who call good evil' condemns the whole church, and that Paul forbids those who fast and those who eat to judge one another.
36.21Augustine answers the claim that Peter taught Saturday fasting at Rome after defeating Simon Magus, citing the story as an uncertain opinion and urging harmony between the customs.
36.22Augustine says that disputes over which apostolic custom is original are endless, and that the one faith of the church may be clothed in varied observances like the queen's embroidered robe.
36.23Augustine rejects the claim that eating on Saturday is serving two masters, since Christ is Lord of both the Sabbath and the Lord's day.
36.24Augustine corrects the tract's contrast between old and new worship, arguing that each old sign gave way to its spiritual counterpart, and so the carnal Sabbath to the spiritual.
36.25Augustine gives his own view: fasting is commanded in the New Testament, but no days are fixed, and relaxing the fast on Saturday better signifies eternal rest.
36.26Augustine counsels that those who fast and those who eat on Saturday should not despise or judge one another, avoiding offence either way.
36.27Augustine says fasting on Sunday is a scandal, especially because the Manichaeans made it their fast day, except within a long continuous fast.
36.28Augustine explains that Paul's all-night discourse at Troas on the first day of the week was a special necessity, not evidence that the apostles fasted on Sundays, as the Priscillianists claim.
36.29Augustine concludes that, since heretics made Sunday a fast day, even Paul's example should not now be followed, and the Lord's day should not be a fast day except within a vowed continuous fast.
36.30Augustine explains that Wednesday and Friday are fast days because the plot against Christ was made on the fourth day and he suffered on the sixth.
36.31Augustine explains that Saturday, the day Christ rested in the tomb, is kept by some with fasting and by others with relaxation, but all fast on Holy Saturday.
36.32Augustine recalls Ambrose's advice to follow the custom of the church where one is, and tells Casulanus to follow his own bishop's practice on Saturday fasting.
37.1Augustine thanks Simplicianus of Milan for his fatherly letter of congratulation.
37.2Augustine says Simplicianus's approval of his books is God's confirmation of his work.
37.3Augustine promises to answer Simplicianus's questions and asks him to pray for him and correct his writings.
38.1Augustine, confined to bed by a painful ailment, tells Profuturus he is nevertheless well in spirit and asks his prayers.
38.2Augustine reports the death of the primate Megalius and warns that anger, even just anger, if harboured, grows into hatred.
38.3Augustine sends greetings to Severus and asks Profuturus to urge Victor to return by way of Calama on a matter concerning Nectarius.
39.1Jerome writes to Augustine commending the deacon Praesidius and recalling an earlier letter.
39.2Jerome describes the troubles of his monastery, trusts in Christ's victory, and sends greetings to Alypius.
40.1Augustine thanks Jerome for his letter, asks for a regular correspondence, and says he knows Jerome through his books.
40.2Augustine asks why Jerome's catalogue of church writers bears the title 'Epitaphium' when it includes living authors.
40.3Augustine objects that Jerome's view of Gal 2, that Paul's rebuke of Peter was a dutiful pretence, would destroy the authority of Scripture.
40.4Augustine explains that Paul's becoming 'as a Jew' was an act of compassion, not pretence, and that he kept the Jewish rites without hope of salvation in them.
40.5Augustine holds that Paul truly rebuked Peter for compelling Gentiles to judaize, and that admitting a lie in Scripture would make it all doubtful.
40.6Augustine argues that what Paul counted as loss was Jewish error, not the law's rites, and that his becoming all things to all was compassion, not pretence.
40.7Augustine urges Jerome to retract his interpretation, comparing the truth Christians die for with the Helen of the Greeks.
40.8Augustine mentions an earlier letter that was never delivered and asks pardon if Jerome's view proves the better.
40.9Augustine asks Jerome to state Origen's errors and to write a short handbook of all heresies, and commends the bearer Paul.
41.1Alypius and Augustine rejoice that Aurelius has had presbyters preach to the people in his presence.
41.2Alypius and Augustine ask Aurelius for copies of the presbyters' sermons and his opinion of Tyconius's seven rules.
42.1Augustine reproaches Paulinus and Therasia for not answering for two years and asks after Paulinus's work against paganism.
43.1Augustine explains that those who hold an inherited error without obstinacy are not heretics, and that love obliges him to write to Donatists.
43.2Augustine defends writing to the Donatists about their souls, citing the blessing on peacemakers.
43.3Augustine recalls the debate at which the Donatists produced the acts condemning Caecilian, and he answered that Secundus of Tigisis had pardoned confessed traitors who later condemned Caecilian.
43.4Augustine summarizes how Caecilian was vindicated at Rome under Miltiades, at Arles, and by Constantine, and Felix of Aptunga by the proconsul.
43.5Augustine recalls the reading, in one day, of the documents proving Caecilian's and Felix's innocence.
43.6Augustine presses the Donatists with the plain evidence and explains that Secundus pardoned the confessed traitors because he himself was suspected.
43.7Augustine argues that Caecilian, in communion with Rome and the churches overseas, could rightly refuse a suspect council, and Secundus should not have condemned him in absence.
43.8Augustine imagines the counsel Secundus should have given: leave the cases to God or bring them before the churches overseas, rather than create a schism.
43.9Augustine argues that the Donatists avoided bringing their charges overseas because they could not prove them there.
43.10Augustine argues that the confessed traitors condemned Caecilian to deflect suspicion from themselves.
43.11Augustine argues that condemning absent men without a hearing, while pardoning confessed traitors, was unjust, citing Sirach on inquiry before blame.
43.12Augustine argues that since Felix, the most fiercely accused, was proved innocent, the others condemned with him should be presumed innocent too.
43.13Augustine answers the objection that a bishop should not have been cleared by a civil court: the Donatists themselves appealed to the emperor.
43.14Augustine argues that the Roman synod under Miltiades rightly judged the case at the emperor's request and found nothing against Caecilian.
43.15Augustine recounts how at Rome the Donatists failed to produce accusers and Donatus withdrew, while a further accusation against Caecilian came to nothing.
43.16Augustine praises Miltiades's peaceable sentence, which blamed Donatus alone and offered to recognize bishops ordained by Majorinus, over the rash council of seventy.
43.17Augustine explains that the council against Caecilian was driven by a few guilty bishops and by the money of Lucilla, whom Caecilian had once rebuked.
43.18Augustine defends Caecilian's refusal to appear before the hostile council and notes that the Donatists went overseas only too late.
43.19Augustine argues that the Donatists appealed overseas only to have an excuse, and that if they distrusted the Roman judges, a plenary council remained open to them.
43.20Augustine recounts the Donatists' appeal from the Council of Arles to Constantine and the emperor's judgement at Milan in Caecilian's favour.
43.21Augustine charges the Donatists with schism and rebaptism and argues that tolerating the wicked in the church for the sake of unity does not defile the good.
43.22Augustine reads the letter to the angel of Ephesus as praise of a church leader who bore false apostles for Christ's name.
43.23Augustine gives examples from Aaron to Paul of saints who tolerated the wicked among God's people without being defiled.
43.24Augustine points to the Donatists' own toleration of Circumcellion violence and of Optatus, and argues that schism is punished more severely than idolatry.
43.25Augustine sums up the history and appeals to the worldwide church, foretold in Ps 2:8, as the proof that the Donatists are cut off from Christ's inheritance.
43.26Augustine compares the Maximianist schism against Primian with the Donatist schism against Caecilian and asks the Donatists to judge both alike.
43.27Augustine urges the Donatists to put eternal salvation above human friendships and to find what answer their leaders can give.
44.1Augustine tells the Donatist laymen how he visited their bishop Fortunius at Thubursicum, where a noisy crowd hindered the discussion.
44.2Augustine explains that the attempt to record the debate failed amid the noise and that he now writes down what he remembers.
44.3Augustine reports that Fortunius praised his life but claimed his own communion was worldwide, which Augustine proposed to test by letters of communion.
44.4Augustine recounts the exchange on false prophets and on persecution, arguing that suffering proves nothing unless it is for righteousness.
44.5Augustine asks how the Donatists could separate from the churches overseas, and whether they were in communion with the East before Macarius.
44.6Augustine shows that the letter Fortunius produced, from the council at Serdica to a bishop Donatus, came from the Arian party that condemned Athanasius and Julius.
44.7Augustine answers that suffering persecution does not prove righteousness, citing Ambrose and Maximian, whom the Donatists did not consider righteous.
44.8Augustine answers Fortunius's story of a Donatist interventor killed by Catholics: the story must be verified, and killing does not decide which side is righteous.
44.9Augustine notes Donatist violence and answers Fortunius's question about killing by citing Elijah, while granting that such deeds are not done by good men now.
44.10Augustine argues from Christ's toleration of Judas at the Last Supper and rebuts the claim that the apostles then had only John's baptism.
44.11Augustine answers the fear of persecution by appealing to Paul's call to bear with one another and keep unity, as the prophets did.
44.12Augustine reports that Fortunius regretted the Donatist rule of rebaptism and his people's violence, and that they agreed to a further conference of ten bishops on each side.
44.13Augustine urges the Donatists to hold Fortunius to his promise and explains why the conversation was cut short.
44.14Augustine proposes a quiet conference on a jointly owned estate, with the canonical Scriptures and documents at hand.
45.1Alypius and Augustine complain to Paulinus and Therasia of two years without a letter.
45.2Alypius and Augustine ask for Paulinus's work against the pagans and commend the bearer of the letter.
46.1Publicola, a landowner, asks Augustine eighteen questions on oaths sworn by pagan gods, food and objects connected with idols, and self-defence.
47.1Augustine begins his reply to Publicola, warning that he cannot guarantee to remove his doubts.
47.2Augustine argues that using the good faith of someone who swore by false gods is not a share in his sin, and that oaths are forbidden to guard against perjury.
47.3Augustine explains that produce, water, and baths are not defiled by pagan offerings, and that spoils of destroyed temples may be put to common or sacred use but not taken for private gain.
47.4Augustine answers the questions on food offered to idols, temple produce and wells, and on acting with an uncertain conscience.
47.5Augustine rejects killing in self-defence except for soldiers and officials acting for others, and holds that one is not guilty of harm arising from lawful things such as a wall.
47.6Augustine answers that a starving traveller should refuse food known to be offered to an idol but may eat it if this is unknown.
48.1Augustine asks the monks of Capraria for their prayers, since secular business presses heavily on him as bishop.
48.2Augustine urges the monks to persevere, not to refuse service to the church out of love of leisure, and to avoid both pride and sloth.
48.3Augustine urges the monks to do all their works, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and mutual forbearance, for the glory of God.
48.4Augustine explains why he wrote and mentions the death of the monk Eustasius.
49.1Augustine accepts the Donatist bishop Honoratus's proposal to discuss their differences by letter.
49.2Augustine argues from Scripture that the church is spread through all nations and that the Catholics, unlike the Donatists, are in communion with the churches founded by the apostles.
49.3Augustine asks Honoratus to explain how Christ's worldwide church could have survived only in the Donatist party in Africa.
50.1Augustine rebukes the magistrates of Sufes for the killing of sixty Christians over a destroyed statue of Hercules, offering to replace the idol but demanding the lives back.
51.1Augustine proposes to the Donatist bishop Crispinus a debate by letter and argues that Scripture punishes schism more severely than idolatry or burning the sacred books.
51.2Augustine presses Crispinus with the Donatists' reception of Felicianus and Praetextatus, condemned as Maximianist schismatics, back into their sees.
51.3Augustine turns the charge of persecution back on the Donatists, who used imperial judges to expel the Maximianists from their churches.
51.4Augustine argues that by accepting without rebaptism those baptized by Maximianist bishops, the Donatists have conceded the validity of baptism outside their communion.
51.5Augustine concludes that the Donatists accept the baptism of condemned Maximianists while rejecting that of the worldwide church, and calls on Crispinus to answer.
52.1Augustine welcomes a letter from his Donatist kinsman Severinus and points him to the Catholic Church, the city on a hill that cannot be hidden.
52.2Augustine compares the Donatists to branches cut off from the vine for lack of the fruit of love.
52.3Augustine argues that either the Donatists' charges were false or they failed to prove them, and in either case their schism is without excuse.
52.4Augustine urges Severinus not to let carnal habit keep him from the Catholic Church, warning of God's judgement.
53.1Fortunatus, Alypius, and Augustine answer a Donatist presbyter who claimed an angel told him to write to Generosus, citing Paul's curse on any other gospel.
53.2Augustine lists the bishops of Rome from Peter to Anastasius and notes that no Donatist bishop appears in the succession.
53.3Augustine argues that even an unworthy bishop in the succession would not harm the church, since the faithful hope in the Lord, not in men.
53.4Augustine cites the records showing that Silvanus, the first Donatist bishop of Constantina, had himself handed over church property in the persecution.
53.5Augustine lists the documents of the early Donatist controversy that prove Caecilian's innocence.
53.6Augustine argues from Scripture and from the Maximianist affair that the Donatists' charge of contagion through communion condemns themselves.
53.7Augustine concludes that the presbyter's angel was either Satan disguised or a lie, and that he has been answered in love.
54.1Augustine tells Januarius that Christ gave few and simple sacraments, and that customs observed by the whole church come from the apostles or plenary councils.
54.2Augustine says that practices which vary locally, such as Saturday fasting and the frequency of communion, are free, and one should follow the local church.
54.3Augustine recalls Ambrose's advice to Monica to follow the fasting custom of whatever church one is in, and deplores quarrels over such matters.
54.4Augustine sets out the arguments for and against daily communion and concludes that both sides honour the sacrament and should remain in peace.
54.5Augustine illustrates the folly of insisting on one's home custom with examples about the Lenten fast and the Maundy Thursday Eucharist.
54.6Augustine classifies the question of the Maundy Thursday Eucharist as a local custom, in which each should follow the church he is in.
54.7Augustine explains how the custom of an evening Eucharist after a meal on Maundy Thursday may have arisen from the gospel accounts of the Last Supper.
54.8Augustine defends the universal custom of receiving the Eucharist fasting, which he attributes to the apostles' ordering of the church.
54.9Augustine accepts an evening Eucharist after a meal on Maundy Thursday and explains the double celebration by the custom of bathing that day.
54.10Augustine suggests that bathing on Maundy Thursday began with the candidates for Easter baptism, and promises to answer Januarius's other questions later.
55.1Augustine begins his answer to Januarius's remaining questions.
55.2Augustine explains that Christmas is a simple commemoration, whereas Easter is a sacrament signifying the passage from death to life, as the Hebrew word pascha means.
55.3Augustine explains that our passage from death to life begins now in faith and baptism and will be completed in the resurrection of the body.
55.4Augustine explains against those who said the resurrection had already happened that our rising with Christ is now in hope, with the body's redemption still to come.
55.5Augustine explains that Easter falls in the first month, the month of new things, and in the third week of the moon, signifying the third age, that of grace.
55.6Augustine turns to the moon's phases, ridiculing the Manichaean doctrine that the moon fills with liberated particles of God.
55.7Augustine sets out the astronomers' two explanations of the moon's phases and notes that in either case it waxes as it moves away from the sun.
55.8Augustine compares Christ to the unchanging sun and fallen humanity to the changing moon, which grows bright inwardly as it turns to the true Sun.
55.9Augustine explains that Easter begins at the fourteenth moon, when the moon turns toward the sun, signifying the soul's conversion to inward things.
55.10Augustine shows from Scripture that the moon signifies the church in its mortal pilgrimage, and Jericho ('moon') falling at the seventh circuit signifies the end of worldly hope.
55.11Augustine insists that drawing figures from the sun and moon does not mean worshipping them, any more than calling Christ a lamb means worshipping cattle.
55.12Augustine answers the Manichaean taunt about the Easter reckoning: using natural things as figures is not superstition.
55.13Augustine distinguishes astrology, which he condemns, from observing natural seasons and from using creation as figures of sacred truths.
55.14Augustine says the sun's position in Aries at Easter is not why Christians keep the feast then, though Scripture is free to draw figures from the stars.
55.15Augustine distinguishes legitimate uses of the stars in farming, navigation, and teaching from astrology's search for fated outcomes.
55.16Augustine explains that Christians, unlike Jews, require a sabbath within the Easter celebration, because a sabbath lay between Christ's death and resurrection.
55.17Augustine explains the sabbath as a figure of eternal rest, which is active and untroubled, and the Lord's day, the eighth and first, as the restored, eternal life.
55.18Augustine explains that the sabbath figures rest in the Holy Spirit, and that souls, like weights, strive for the rest found only in delighting in God.
55.19Augustine explains that God's rest on the seventh day signifies the rest he will give us, as our good works are his work in us.
55.20Augustine relates the first three commandments to the Trinity: images to the Father, God's name to the Son, and the sabbath to the Holy Spirit and future rest.
55.21Augustine explains that figurative expressions kindle love more than plain statements, because the mind is quickened by passing from images to spiritual realities.
55.22Augustine explains that of the Ten Commandments only the sabbath is to be kept figuratively, as spiritual rest, while the others are kept literally.
55.23Augustine explains that the Lord's day, the eighth and first, was revealed by Christ's resurrection and signifies the glorified activity of the risen body.
55.24Augustine interprets the three days of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection: the cross is the present life of mortifying sin, the burial and resurrection are held in faith and hope.
55.25Augustine interprets the breadth, height, length, and depth of the cross as cheerfulness in good works, hope of reward, patience, and the hidden sacrament, and the burial and resurrection as held in faith.
55.26Augustine warns against expecting full blessedness in this life: the new life is begun in faith and hope and will be completed at the resurrection.
55.27Augustine explains that Easter's date combines the Old Testament lunar rule with the days of the week of Christ's passion, fixed by councils.
55.28Augustine explains the scriptural basis and number symbolism of the forty days of Lent and the fifty days of Easter, when fasting is relaxed and prayer is made standing.
55.29Augustine sets the fifty days from Passover to the giving of the law beside the fifty days from Easter to Pentecost, the law written by God's finger and the Spirit who is God's finger.
55.30Augustine counts the fifty days from Passover to the giving of the law and interprets the law in the ark as sanctification in Christ's body.
55.31Augustine interprets the 153 fish of John 21 as the triangular number of seventeen, the law's ten plus the Spirit's seven, signifying the saints at rest in the end.
55.32Augustine distinguishes what rests on Scripture (Easter, Pentecost) from what rests on church agreement (Lent, the octave of the newly baptized) and from local variation (Alleluia, standing at prayer).
55.33Augustine explains the varying practice of foot-washing in the Easter season and the wish to keep it distinct from baptism.
55.34Augustine gives the rule for local customs: follow what helps a better life unless it causes greater harm, and he commends the singing of psalms against Donatist criticism.
55.35Augustine deplores the multiplication of local observances not grounded in Scripture, councils, or universal custom, and would abolish them where possible.
55.36Augustine condemns the view that meat is unclean as contrary to the faith, while upholding abstinence for self-control.
55.37Augustine disapproves of using the Gospels for fortune-telling by lot, though it is better than consulting demons.
55.38Augustine rejects Januarius's flattery that nothing escapes him, confessing that he does not know far more of Scripture than he knows, but finds love in every passage.
55.39Augustine closes by warning that knowledge must serve love, which alone abides.
56.1Augustine tells Celer that, being away visiting his churches, he has sent the presbyter Optatus to read with him the promised material.
56.2Augustine urges Celer to leave the Donatists, admitting that breaking with habit is harder than seeing the truth.
57.1Augustine reminds Celer of the book he lent him showing the Donatists have no case and offers further answers.
57.2Augustine asks Celer to promote Catholic unity among his tenants near Hippo and to help a Donatist friend who fears his own party.
58.1Augustine congratulates the Roman senator Pammachius on persuading his tenants in Numidia to leave the Donatists for Catholic unity.
58.2Augustine tells Pammachius that his letter cannot express the joy in his heart at his deed, and gives thanks to God.
58.3Augustine wishes more senators would follow Pammachius's example and asks him to share the letter, commending its bearers.
59.1Augustine excuses himself to the primate Victorinus from a council, objecting to irregularities in the summons, including the omission of Xanthippus, who also claimed the primacy.
59.2Augustine proposes that the dispute over the Numidian primacy be settled by the senior bishops before any council is summoned.
60.1Augustine advises Aurelius against ordaining monks who have deserted their monastery, lest it be said that a bad monk makes a good cleric.
60.2Augustine explains that the two monks left his monastery against his will and leaves the decision about them to Aurelius.
61.1Augustine sets out for Theodorus the terms on which Donatist clergy are received: their error is rejected, their baptism and the name of God they bear are honoured.
61.2Augustine explains that Donatists coming to the Catholic Church keep their baptism, orders, and vows, and receive the love and unity that make these profitable.
62.1Alypius, Augustine, and Samsucius report to Severus on their inquiry at Subsana into the affair of the reader Timothy, and apologize for a discourtesy to his messengers.
62.2The bishops explain that Timothy will abide by their joint decision, his oath binding only his own will, and ask Severus to agree.
63.1Augustine answers Severus's complaint, explaining that Timothy was ordained subdeacon at Subsana without his consent.
63.2Augustine explains how he rebuked those responsible, admonished Timothy and Carcedonius, and prayed, before Timothy left for Milevis.
63.3Augustine says that for the sake of love he and Carcedonius agreed to return Timothy to Severus.
63.4Augustine asks Severus to judge whether Timothy, who had read publicly several times, was not already a reader of Hippo, and warns that such oaths would undermine church discipline.
64.1Augustine encourages the presbyter Quintianus, who is under church discipline, to wait patiently in hope.
64.2Augustine explains to Quintianus that he cannot receive him into communion while Aurelius has not, but has passed his complaint on to Aurelius.
64.3Augustine rebukes Quintianus for having non-canonical scriptures read in church and clarifies the council's rules on receiving clergy and monks.
64.4Augustine supports the people of Vigesila in refusing a bishop deposed by a plenary council of Africa.
65.1Augustine reports to the primate Xanthippus his removal of the presbyter Abundantius for embezzlement and for dining and staying with a woman of bad reputation on a fast day.
65.2Augustine explains to Xanthippus that he removed Abundantius on clear evidence, and that he cannot entrust a congregation to such a man whatever others decide.
66.1Augustine rebukes the Donatist bishop Crispinus for rebaptizing, by pressure, the tenants of an estate he had bought at Mappalia.
66.2Augustine proposes that the Mappalia tenants hear both bishops, with an interpreter in Punic, and choose freely.
67.1Augustine tells Jerome he has heard his letter arrived and blames the lack of reply on some hindrance.
67.2Augustine denies having written a book against Jerome and sent it to Rome, and invites Jerome's frank criticism of his writings.
67.3Augustine wishes he could live near Jerome and asks him to keep up their friendship by letter.
68.1Jerome tells Augustine that a letter attributed to him, urging Jerome to retract on Galatians, has circulated in copies, and asks whether it is genuine.
68.2Jerome disclaims any wish to attack Augustine's books but warns the younger man not to provoke an old one, citing Persius and Virgil.
68.3Jerome mentions his reply to the abuse of 'Calpurnius Lanarius' and assures Augustine of his affection.
69.1Alypius and Augustine praise Maximian, a convert from Donatism, for resigning as bishop of Bagai to avoid dissension in the church.
69.2Augustine urges Castorius to accept election as bishop of Bagai in his brother's place and dedicate his gifts to Christ.
70.1Alypius and Augustine argue to Naucelio that the Donatists' condemnation and later restoration of Felicianus shows they could condemn the innocent, as they did Caecilian.
70.2Augustine presses the dilemma that the Donatists accepted without rebaptism those Felicianus baptized in schism, yet reject the baptism of the whole world.
71.1Augustine commends to Jerome the deacon Cyprian, bearer of the letter, as a reliable carrier of a reply.
71.2Augustine resends his earlier letters to Jerome, including the first one written while he was a presbyter, which Profuturus never carried.
71.3Augustine asks Jerome why his new translation of Job from the Hebrew seems less exact than his earlier one from the Greek, marked with asterisks and obelisks.
71.4Augustine urges Jerome to translate the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew, fearing that a version from the Hebrew will divide Latin from Greek churches.
71.5Augustine reports a riot at Oea over Jerome's rendering in Jonah, praises his revision of the Gospels from the Greek, and asks him to translate the Septuagint.
72.1Jerome tells Augustine he cannot understand how the letter addressed to him circulates in Rome and Italy but never reached him.
72.2Jerome explains that friends suspected Augustine of seeking fame by attacking him, and that he had not replied because he doubted the letter was genuine.
72.3Jerome asks Augustine either to send a signed copy or to stop provoking an old man, quoting Virgil and the example of Barzillai.
72.4Jerome tells Augustine to either disown the letter or admit it, so that any reply in self-defence will be Augustine's fault.
72.5Jerome accuses Augustine of provoking an old man, hints that his commentaries on the Psalms differ from the Greek interpreters, and asks that future letters come to him first.
73.1Augustine replies to Jerome’s complaint about the copies of his letter that had reached Jerome, asking how they can discuss Scripture without rancour if Jerome means to wound him.
73.2Augustine argues that Jerome would not have expected him to feel hurt unless Jerome himself felt hurt by Augustine’s letter.
73.3Augustine asks Jerome’s pardon for any injury his letter caused and begs him to point out his real errors in a spirit of love.
73.4Augustine says he welcomes Jerome’s correction, even if it stings, and invites the ‘weary ox’ to tread hard on his faults.
73.5Augustine wishes he lived near Jerome, laments the slow delivery of his letters, and proposes sending a young man to study with him.
73.6Augustine grieves over the quarrel between Jerome and Rufinus, which shows that no friend can be sure of another’s future.
73.7Augustine asks Jerome how the devil could have been blessed as a good angel if angels foreknow their future, and repeats his longing to meet him.
73.8Augustine laments that bitterness arose between Jerome and Rufinus, once companions in the Holy Land, and longs to plead with them both to stop writing against each other.
73.9Augustine asks that they discuss their differences without bitterness, or else drop them, and promises to defend his views without wronging Jerome while begging pardon for any offence.
73.10Augustine reflects that the best defence against a friend turned enemy is a clear conscience, and hopes Jerome and Rufinus will be reconciled.
74.1Augustine asks Praesidius to forward his letter to Jerome and, if he finds Augustine at fault, to tell Augustine rather than Jerome.
75.1Jerome tells Augustine that he has received his three letters, which he regards as criticisms of his works, and must answer them in haste.
75.2Jerome arms himself with Scripture for the debate, hopes the truth will win whichever of them is right, and turns to Augustine’s questions.
75.3Jerome explains that his catalogue of Christian writers is titled ‘On Illustrious Men’, not ‘Epitaph’.
75.4Jerome answers that his view of Peter and Paul at Antioch (Gal 2) was taken from Origen and other Greek commentators and left to the reader’s judgment.
75.5Jerome mocks Augustine’s view that Jewish Christians remained bound to the law and says he himself merely reports the various interpretations of earlier writers.
75.6Jerome says that Origen, the later Greek commentators, and John Chrysostom held his view, which answered Porphyry’s attack on Paul, and challenges Augustine to name one supporter of his.
75.7Jerome recounts from Acts how Peter was first taught that Gentiles are clean and led the Jerusalem council in freeing them from the law.
75.8Jerome argues that Peter had been the first to teach that the law need not be kept, and withdrew from the Gentiles at Antioch only out of fear of losing the Jewish believers.
75.9Jerome points out that Paul himself circumcised Timothy and shaved his head under a vow, and so should pardon Peter.
75.10Jerome cites Paul’s purification and offering in the temple at James’s advice as a further pretence for the sake of the Jewish believers.
75.11Jerome concludes that Peter and Paul both pretended to keep the law, defends the older interpretation as an honourable arrangement rather than a lie, and challenges Augustine to do better.
75.12Jerome quotes Augustine’s view that Paul kept the Jewish rites as harmless for Jewish believers and summarizes his argument about Peter’s fault.
75.13Jerome argues that Augustine’s view revives the heresy of the Ebionites and Nazarenes, who mixed the law with the gospel.
75.14Jerome insists that the Jewish ceremonies are deadly to all Christians, Jewish or Gentile, citing the Gospels, Jeremiah, Paul, and Ezekiel.
75.15Jerome challenges Augustine to let a converted Jew keep circumcision, sabbath, food laws, and Passover, and quotes Augustine’s account of the Jews’ ‘evil’ that Paul abandoned.
75.16Jerome denies that the law’s ceremonies can be kept ‘without necessity for salvation’, since they are either good or evil, and accuses Augustine of falling into the Ebionite error.
75.17Jerome mocks Augustine’s claim that Paul kept the law out of compassion rather than pretence, arguing that both views amount to Paul pretending to be what he was not.
75.18Jerome asks pardon for his long reply, denies teaching lying, and complains that Augustine’s letters circulate in Italy before reaching him.
75.19Jerome explains the asterisks and obeli of his earlier translation from the Hexaplaric Septuagint and defends his new translation from the Hebrew.
75.20Jerome turns Augustine’s dilemma about the Septuagint against Augustine’s own commentary on the Psalms and defends his translation from the Hebrew.
75.21Jerome quotes Augustine’s story of the riot at Oea over his rendering in Jonah.
75.22Jerome defends his rendering ‘ivy’ for the plant of Jonah 4:6 and asks Augustine to leave an old man in peace.
76.1Augustine, speaking for the Catholic Church, urges the Donatists to accept the worldwide Church promised in Scripture rather than unproved charges about the surrender of the sacred books.
76.2Augustine argues from the parable of the wheat and tares that the Donatists separated themselves wrongly, and summarizes the origins of the schism and its condemnation at Rome, Arles, and by Constantine.
76.3Augustine points out the Donatists’ inconsistency in tolerating Optatus and receiving back the Maximianists, such as Felicianus of Musti, whom they had condemned.
76.4Augustine contrasts the Donatists’ charge of handing over the Scriptures with their own acceptance of the Maximianist schismatics and their baptism, and urges Donatist laity to question their bishops.
77.1Augustine urges Felix and Hilarinus not to be shaken by slander against God’s servants, which Christ foretold.
77.2Augustine explains that he will not strike the presbyter Boniface from the clergy list, since no crime has been proved and his case with Spes awaits God’s judgment.
78.1Augustine reminds his people that Scripture foretold offences and the cooling of love before the end, so that they might persevere.
78.2Augustine asks his people to grieve and pray over the case between the presbyter Boniface and Spes, one of whom must be guilty of a sexual advance or of slander.
78.3Augustine explains how the case arose and why he sent Boniface and Spes to the shrine of St Felix at Nola, where God might reveal the guilty party.
78.4Augustine explains why he has not removed Boniface’s name from the clergy list but will leave it unread if the people wish, since only a guilty conscience removes a name from the book of life.
78.5Augustine warns against the devil’s three snares in such cases: imitating evil, losing heart under slander, and judging others by suspicion.
78.6Augustine asks his people not to add to his pain, and compares those who delight in clerical scandals to the dogs that licked Lazarus’s sores.
78.7Augustine asks his people not to add to his sorrow and prays that God will strengthen them.
78.8Augustine rebukes those who boasted over the fall of two Donatist deacons, and shows from Scripture that no household, not even Christ’s, is free of the wicked.
78.9Augustine observes that monasteries produce both the best and the worst of men, and urges his people not to despise them for their failures.
79.1Augustine challenges a Manichaean teacher either to answer the question that defeated his predecessor Fortunatus or to leave Hippo.
80.1Augustine sends Paulinus of Nola a hasty note by Celsus, promising a longer letter and asking for his prayers.
80.2Augustine asks Paulinus to explain more fully how we recognize God’s will when it calls us to change a decision that was not in itself wrong.
80.3Augustine asks Paulinus how to discern God’s will through circumstances that call one to change a course of action.
81.1Jerome sends Augustine a short, conciliatory note by Firmus, asking for letters of love rather than disputes and referring him to his commentary on Jonah.
82.1Augustine asks Jerome whether he received his earlier letter and whether he has forgiven him.
82.2Augustine asks Jerome how two friends can disagree frankly about Scripture without being suspected either of vanity or of flattery.
82.3Augustine states that he believes only the canonical Scriptures to be free of all error, while other writers, however holy, are to be judged by Scripture and reason.
82.4Augustine argues that if Paul’s account of rebuking Peter was a pretence, no statement of Scripture could be trusted.
82.5Augustine rejects the idea that it is better to think Paul wrote falsely than that Peter erred, since by that logic the Gospels and Kings would lie about Peter’s denial and David’s sin.
82.6Augustine warns that admitting deliberate falsehood in the apostles would hand the Manichaeans an argument against Scripture.
82.7Augustine argues that either Paul lied in Galatians or Peter really acted wrongly, and he chooses to believe Paul wrote the truth.
82.8Augustine explains that Peter wrongly implied the old rites were needed for salvation, while Paul kept them only to show they were not idolatry but God-given shadows of what was to come.
82.9Augustine argues from James’s advice in Acts 21 that Paul kept the rites to refute the slander that he condemned the law as sacrilegious, not to teach that they were needed for salvation.
82.10Augustine notes that the apostolic decree forbade compelling Gentiles to live as Jews but did not forbid Jews to keep their customs, so Paul rightly held Peter to it.
82.11Augustine argues that Peter shared Paul’s view, and that Paul rebuked not his belief but his pretence, which implied that circumcision was necessary for salvation.
82.12Augustine explains that Paul circumcised Timothy to show circumcision was not idolatry, but refused to circumcise Titus so as not to imply it was necessary for salvation.
82.13Augustine replies that he fears less the philosophers’ category of indifferent acts than Jerome’s comparison of the apostles to lying advocates.
82.14Augustine argues that the old rites were neither good (since they do not justify) nor evil (since God commanded them), comparing the varying custom of fasting on Saturday.
82.15Augustine explains that the old rites were to be read, not practised, by Christians, but were allowed to fade out honourably among Jewish believers; Peter erred by pretence, while Paul acted truthfully.
82.16Augustine turns Jerome’s charge back on him and compares the old rites to a dead body that the apostles honourably escorted to burial but that no Christian may now disturb.
82.17Augustine admits he should have added that the old rites were harmless only at the beginning, refers Jerome to his work against Faustus, and affirms that Jewish Christians may not now keep them.
82.18Augustine agrees with Jerome that the Jewish rites are now deadly, adding that pretended observance is equally so, and points out that Christ himself truly kept the law.
82.19Augustine argues that Paul’s warning against circumcision in Galatians applies to those who thought it necessary for salvation, not to Timothy’s case.
82.20Augustine explains that to be ‘under the law’ in Paul’s sense is to try to keep God’s commandments by one’s own strength without grace, and that the old rites could justify no one but were to be honourably laid aside.
82.21Augustine argues that Jerome’s ‘arrangement’ (dispensatio) is simply a dutiful lie under another name.
82.22Augustine insists that the authors of canonical Scripture never lie, and praises Paul’s just freedom and Peter’s humility in accepting correction as the better answer to Porphyry.
82.23Augustine notes that Jerome himself discredits four of the six or seven authorities he cites, leaving only Eusebius of Emesa, Theodore of Heraclea, and John Chrysostom.
82.24Augustine names Ambrose and Cyprian on his side but appeals above all to Paul’s own oath in Galatians that he does not lie.
82.25Augustine trusts Paul’s sworn word and denies that Paul either pretended to the Jews’ error or shared it.
82.26Augustine clarifies that Paul acted truthfully, not in pretence, both when he conformed to Jewish custom and when he freed Gentiles from food laws.
82.27Augustine argues that Paul could not have been truthful with Gentiles and deceitful with Jews, since he owed both love with a pure heart and unfeigned faith.
82.28Augustine explains that Paul’s becoming ‘as a Jew’ meant seeking to free the Jews from error as if it were his own, out of love of neighbour.
82.29Augustine illustrates compassionate identification from Galatians 6:1: Paul became all things to all by sympathy, not pretence.
82.30Augustine quotes Jerome’s own profession of sincere friendship and says that Paul showed the same sincerity in his letters.
82.31Augustine thanks Jerome for correcting him and asks that his own frank criticism be taken in the same spirit, since true friends wound faithfully.
82.32Augustine asks that their friends learn that friends can disagree in love, and assures Jerome that his earlier letter circulated without his intent.
82.33Augustine explains his earlier remarks, including the reference to Stesichorus, asks Jerome’s forgiveness, and invites his correction, acknowledging that in many things he is Jerome’s inferior.
82.34Augustine asks Jerome which Jews he meant had corrupted the text, and requests his translation from the Septuagint and his book on translation.
82.35Augustine explains that he opposes reading Jerome’s Hebrew-based translation in church only to avoid scandal, and would keep ‘gourd’ in Jonah.
82.36Augustine closes by promising to take care that his letters reach Jerome first, and asks that they keep the freedom of friendship to criticize each other.
83.1Augustine writes to Alypius about restoring the good will of the church of Thiave and proposes a joint letter to them.
83.2Augustine argues against Alypius’s compromise of splitting the disputed property, since it would make the bishops look avaricious.
83.3Augustine proposes that in future monks dispose of their property before entering, and that in this case the property be left to Thiave to avoid scandal.
83.4Augustine proposes that a cleric’s property belong to the church where he is ordained, notes that by civil law Honoratus’s property is his own, and reports that bishop Samsucius was shocked at their earlier position.
83.5Augustine urges Alypius to send the joint letter, citing Christ’s paying the temple tax and Paul’s refusing support to avoid offence.
83.6Augustine agrees, if Alypius thinks it just, to owe the Thagaste monastery half the sum, to be paid when the Hippo monastery can afford it.
84.1Augustine explains to bishop Novatus why he cannot return Novatus’s brother, the deacon Lucillus, comparing his own separation from his friend Severus.
84.2Augustine explains that Lucillus’s knowledge of Latin is badly needed in his region, where Latin is scarce, and asks Novatus not to press the request.
85.1Augustine tells bishop Paulus that he withholds communion not from hatred but because he cannot flatter him, and that Paulus’s worldly conduct has gravely wounded the church of Hippo.
85.2Augustine rebukes Paulus for re-entangling himself in worldly business and living beyond his church’s means, and urges him to true episcopal life.
86.1Augustine asks the governor Caecilianus to enforce his edict for Catholic unity in the region of Hippo, preferring deterrence to punishment of the Donatists.
87.1Augustine writes to the Donatist bishop Emeritus, arguing that the churches overseas cannot be defiled by African crimes they never knew of, any more than Donatists are defiled by hidden sinners among them.
87.2Augustine argues that no one is defiled by unknown sinners, and that even known sinners do not harm the good who mourn their sins, as Ezekiel and Paul show.
87.3Augustine concludes that sharing the altar with a sinner does not make one guilty unless one consents to his sin.
87.4Augustine argues that the Donatists, by tolerating Optatus to avoid dividing their own party, condemn their own original division of the Church, a sin punished in Korah’s rebels.
87.5Augustine argues that if Emeritus could plead ignorance about Optatus, the churches of the East far more can plead ignorance of the African ‘traitors’, yet the Donatists condemn and rebaptize them.
87.6Augustine mocks the idea that a Donatist council could condemn the whole world, and asks Emeritus to reply on the one question of why the schism began.
87.7Augustine argues from Romans 13 that the state rightly punishes evil, and that the Donatists suffer not for righteousness but for the evil of schism.
87.8Augustine defends Catholics’ appeals to imperial protection against Donatist violence, citing Paul’s armed escort and Romans 13, while disapproving of any immoderate Catholic action.
87.9Augustine explains that Catholics seek to reunite the Donatists to the root of the Church, without rebaptizing them, since the sacraments they hold remain Christ’s even in schism.
87.10Augustine urges Emeritus to reply on the origin of the schism, noting the Donatist misdeeds he has passed over, such as the bishop of Rusicade’s pact with the rebel Firmus.
88.1The Catholic clergy of Hippo complain to the Donatist primate Januarius of violence by Donatist clergy and Circumcellions, and recall that the Donatists first appealed to Constantine against Caecilian.
88.2A copy of the proconsul Anulinus’s report to the emperors (313) forwarding the petition of the party of Majorinus against Caecilian.
88.3The Hippo clergy recount the condemnation of the Donatist cause at Rome, Arles, and by Constantine, and introduce Constantine’s letter on the acquittal of Felix of Aptunga.
88.4A copy of Constantine’s letter to the proconsul Probianus reporting the acquittal of Felix of Aptunga and summoning the forger Ingentius to court.
88.5The Hippo clergy argue that the Donatists, who first appealed to the emperor, cannot complain of imperial laws against them, comparing Daniel’s accusers thrown to the lions.
88.6The Hippo clergy describe Donatist violence against Catholic bishops, clergy, and laity, including the abduction and humiliation of a presbyter, before the new imperial laws.
88.7The Hippo clergy explain that Catholics sought a peaceful conference and leniency for Donatists, but Donatist violence, especially against the bishop of Bagai, led to the harsher imperial laws.
88.8The Hippo clergy describe Circumcellion attacks, including blinding with lime and vinegar, and contrast them with the Donatists’ claim to suffer persecution.
88.9The Hippo clergy state that captured Donatists are treated gently, instructed, and either reconciled without rebaptism or released unharmed, though some Catholic laity act more harshly.
88.10The Hippo clergy ask Januarius to hold a peaceful conference with the Catholic bishops, so that error, not men, may be removed and the settled case shown to those who do not know it.
88.11The Hippo clergy point out that the Donatists accepted without rebaptism those baptized by the condemned Maximianists, and themselves used judges to expel schismatics from basilicas.
88.12The Hippo clergy ask Januarius at least to restrain the Donatist bands, and warn that God will vindicate his Church.
89.1Augustine urges the official Festus that Catholics must labour as tirelessly for unity as the Donatists do for their error.
89.2Augustine argues that the Donatists are not martyrs, since the cause, not the punishment, makes a martyr, and that their violence makes them the real persecutors.
89.3Augustine recounts that the Donatists themselves first appealed to Constantine against Caecilian, were defeated at every stage, and now call the consequences persecution.
89.4Augustine argues that the worldwide Church cannot be condemned for crimes it could not know, and that the same Scriptures that foretell Christ foretell the universal Church.
89.5Augustine argues against the Donatist view that baptism depends on the minister’s righteousness: it is Christ who baptizes, whoever the minister.
89.6Augustine compares the Church to a physician who must restrain the frenzied and rouse the lethargic, troubling both out of love.
89.7Augustine explains that converted Donatists keep their sacraments but abandon their error, and that some who came over from fear proved better than old Catholics.
89.8Augustine asks Festus to send a trusted agent to help win over the Donatist tenants on his estates near Hippo.
90.1Nectarius, a pagan citizen of Calama, appeals to Augustine to spare his city punishment for its people’s offence, citing a bishop’s duty to obtain pardon.
91.1Augustine praises Nectarius’s patriotism and invites him to become a citizen of the heavenly country.
91.2Augustine argues that Calama will not truly ‘flourish’ if the arson and violence of its pagans go unpunished.
91.3Augustine points Nectarius to Cicero’s On the Republic, whose praise of virtue is truly taught in the churches, and argues that imitating the pagan gods corrupts morals.
91.4Augustine argues, citing Terence and Cicero, that imitating the pagan gods makes men worse, as with the young man in Terence who excused his lust by Jupiter’s example.
91.5Augustine mocks the claim that the myths of the gods are interpreted allegorically, pointing to the public celebration of Jupiter’s adulteries and the obscene games of Flora.
91.6Augustine says Calama will truly flourish only when converted to God, and that he seeks both Christian gentleness and a correction that does not encourage imitation.
91.7Augustine accepts Nectarius’s account of a bishop’s duty but explains that true salvation and pardon require correction, not impunity.
91.8Augustine recounts the pagan riot at Calama on 1 June 408: a forbidden festival, repeated stoning of the church, arson, and the murder of a monk, while the town’s leaders did nothing.
91.9Augustine distinguishes degrees of guilt among the people of Calama and asks that the guilty be spared life and livelihood but deprived of the wealth that enables their wickedness.
91.10Augustine reports meeting both Christians and pagans at Calama, and seeks a correction that deters imitation while winning souls.
92.1Augustine consoles the widow Italica with Christian hope of reunion with the departed in the life to come.
92.2Augustine explains that in the resurrection hearts will be open to one another in the light of God, who is seen by purified minds, not bodily eyes.
92.3Augustine argues that God, who is not in place, cannot be seen by bodily eyes, but will be seen by the inner man as he is renewed in God’s likeness.
92.4Augustine refutes those who claim that God will be seen with bodily eyes, even by the wicked, arguing from Scripture that only the pure in heart will see God, and that with the inner man.
92.5Augustine asks Italica to answer such views with his letter, since faith purifies the heart for the vision of God, which a mind fixed on the flesh cannot attain.
93.1Augustine answers the Rogatist bishop Vincentius, defending the restraint of the Donatists by the civil authorities because many have been corrected by it.
93.2Leaving the Donatists unchecked would be repaying evil for evil, as letting a delirious man run off a cliff would be; many former Circumcellions and lethargic Donatists now thank the Catholics.
93.3Coercion fails with some, but it should be judged by the many it has helped; fear without teaching would be tyranny, teaching without fear too weak against habit.
93.4Love can strike and gentleness can deceive; God himself both comforts and chastises those he loves.
93.5Scripture shows compulsion toward the truth: the guests compelled to come in, Paul's blinding, and the Father's drawing.
93.6Sarah's discipline of Hagar, Moses' punishments and Elijah's killing of false prophets show that like actions are judged by their motive.
93.7The same act differs by motive: the Father, Christ and Judas all handed Christ over, and Paul himself handed men over to Satan for their correction.
93.8Persecution is praiseworthy or blameworthy according to its cause; the good have persecuted the bad for their correction.
93.9Apostolic times had no Christian kings to appeal to; Nebuchadnezzar's persecution and later decree for God figure the church's two ages.
93.10Penalties against Donatists (exile, fines) are milder than the capital laws against pagan sacrifice, for their aim is correction; like the Jews of Rom 10, they seek their own righteousness.
93.11The Rogatists seem milder only because they are too few to be violent, and their founder Rogatus himself went to law over property.
93.12The Donatists themselves petitioned Julian the Apostate, flatteringly calling him a man with whom justice alone had a place.
93.13The Donatists' forebears first accused Caecilian before Constantine and, though defeated before bishops and the emperor, refused peace.
93.14Constantine first decreed confiscation against those who resisted unity after failing to prove their charges; later emperors follow his sentence.
93.15The worldwide church could not be guilty of crimes it never knew; the bad are to be tolerated for the sake of the good, as the prophets, Christ, the apostles and Cyprian did.
93.16What matters is what one is compelled to; many cities once Donatist became sincerely Catholic through fear of the imperial laws.
93.17Augustine admits he first opposed compulsion, but was persuaded by the conversion of his own city and others through fear of the laws.
93.18Converts give thanks in various ways that the fear of the laws moved them out of delay, habit, ignorance and false rumour into unity.
93.19Augustine refuses to hinder the laws that gather Christ's sheep, contrasting the Donatists' care for their own rights with their denial of Christ's inheritance.
93.20The civil power is from God; Vincentius does not do good, for at Cartenna with ten followers he denies the worldwide church foretold by the prophets.
93.21The Gospel and Acts foretell repentance preached to all nations; Vincentius would make forgiveness depend on finding him in Mauretania.
93.22Vincentius argues that Christendom is small in the world; Augustine replies that the Gospel is spreading among barbarian nations as Christ foretold.
93.23Vincentius explains “Catholic” as observance of all commandments; Augustine replies that the church is proven by Scripture's promise of all nations, not by the name.
93.24The Donatists read “Where do you lie down at noon?” as Africa; Augustine mocks the claim, which would favour the Maximianists, or the Arzuges, rather than the Rogatists of western Mauretania.
93.25If separation could be just, the Donatists cannot know whether some unknown group elsewhere separated justly before them; their claim rests only on their own testimony.
93.26The fewness of the Rogatists would make Jews and pagans laugh, and contradicts Paul's use of Isaiah's “many are the children of the desolate”.
93.27If the Rogatists appeal to Noah's eight, they are not yet few enough, and cannot know whether others separated before them.
93.28The church is found in Scripture's promises, as the lily among thorns crying from the ends of the earth; heretics are “companions” who share the sacraments.
93.29The bridegroom's answer, “Unless you know yourself”, tells the church to know itself from Scripture's promises of a worldwide church; those who do not go out after divided flocks.
93.30The church is both few compared with the wicked and many in itself, like Abraham's seed as stars (the strong) and sand (the weak).
93.31Hilary's lament for a time of Arian confusion does not mean the church perished; the deceived were pardoned when corrected, and the church survived in its wheat.
93.32Like Paul to the Corinthians, Hilary rebuked as if all were guilty while aiming at some; the world contains both weeds and wheat.
93.33Scandals multiply as the wicked enter the church, but they cannot extinguish the elect, who grow with the weeds until the final winnowing.
93.34The church swims in the Lord's net with bad fish, separate from them in heart, awaiting bodily separation at the end.
93.35The writings of bishops such as Hilary, Cyprian and Agrippinus do not have canonical authority and may be disagreed with.
93.36If Vincentius values Cyprian, he should follow him in loving unity, refusing to separate the tares early, and not breaking communion over disagreement.
93.37If sharing sacraments with sinners destroyed the church, it perished before Cyprian and Donatus were born; so the Donatist separation has no excuse.
93.38Cyprian's view on rebaptism is found only in his own writings, not Scripture; he may have corrected it, and some even think it forged.
93.39Augustine accepts that Cyprian held rebaptism, since even so the church survived admitting the unbaptized, which refutes the Donatists.
93.40Cyprian either did not hold rebaptism, corrected it, or covered it by his love for unity, and his martyrdom pruned any fault.
93.41Cyprian records that earlier African bishops who refused reconciliation to adulterers still did not break communion with those who granted it.
93.42Whichever side was right about reconciling adulterers, neither defiled the other by communion; so no one is stained by others' sins in the unity of Christ.
93.43The Donatist Tyconius reports that a Donatist council of 270 bishops admitted traditors without rebaptism, and Donatus communicated with such bishops for forty years.
93.44Parmenian answered Tyconius but did not deny his facts, which living witnesses could confirm.
93.45Even setting Tyconius aside, Cyprian's writings show that no one is stained by others' sins in the church's unity.
93.46Catholics do not rebaptize Donatists because baptism is Christ's; converts keep their sacraments, which begin to profit them only within the unity of the church.
93.47Paul rebaptized John's disciples because John's baptism was not Christ's; Christ's baptism is equally valid whoever administers it.
93.48If baptism by a drunkard is not repeated though John's was, neither is baptism by a heretic; Christ's baptism is the same whoever gives it.
93.49Augustine ironically supposes the Rogatists have no drunkards, mocking their claim to be the only faithful and recalling the Pharisee and the tax collector.
93.50Catholics disapprove of those who use the laws out of hatred or greed to seize Donatist property or receive their excommunicates, but they tolerate such people within the church.
93.51Vincentius's own letter speaks of Augustine's conversion to the Christian faith, which was neither Donatist nor Rogatist; only shame keeps him from the true church.
93.52There is a shame that leads to sin and one that leads to grace; Vincentius should not fear the charge of inconsistency, from which Paul himself would not be free.
93.53Augustine defends the church's different treatment of returning deserters and first-time converts, and closes the long letter.
94.1Paulinus of Nola, writing with Therasia to Augustine, describes receiving his letter in Rome through the deacon Quintus and reading it at leisure at Formiae.
94.2Paulinus praises Augustine's understanding of Melania's restrained tears for her son, who died before giving up senatorial ambition for the monastic life.
94.3Paulinus praises the humility and charity of Melania's son and defers to Augustine's praise of Melania.
94.4Paulinus asks Augustine instead to teach him how to die to the world now, as Augustine has.
94.5Love, strong as death, makes us die to the world in imitation of Christ, whose risen body is the pledge of our own glorification.
94.6Paulinus suggests that the risen saints will praise God with real tongues and voices, perhaps in the unutterable angelic speech Paul heard in paradise.
94.7Paulinus asks Augustine how angels and the blessed speak, whether “tongues of angels” means literal organs or kinds of speech.
94.8Paulinus excuses his hasty, much-corrected letter because Quintus insisted on leaving at once.
95.1Augustine, replying to Paulinus and Therasia, rejoices that Possidius is with them, though sad business brought him overseas.
95.2Augustine agrees that one must die to the world, but asks how to live among worldly people without being drawn into their pleasures, and notes the temptation of inner self-praise.
95.3Augustine confesses daily uncertainty about when and how to punish or forgive in the church, citing conflicting Scriptural commands.
95.4Augustine finds Scripture hard to grasp and frank criticism among brothers easily misread as envy; he longs for the solitude of the wilderness.
95.5Augustine explains that he asked about the future life because managing the heavenly city's people now is so uncertain.
95.6Augustine states the general rules of Christian living and that grace determines what each can do, and asks Paulinus to seek counsel on living among men.
95.7Augustine holds that risen bodies will be spiritual and incorruptible, able to eat by power and not necessity, as Christ did after his resurrection.
95.8Augustine leaves open whether angels have bodies, but holds that in the city of the saints praise will be voiced harmoniously in spiritual bodies, with no thought hidden.
95.9Augustine asks for better answers if Paulinus has them, and reminds him of the unanswered questions about Christian leisure.
96.1Augustine congratulates the court official Olympius on his reported promotion and urges him to use his power for the heavenly city.
96.2Augustine renews the request of Bishop Boniface of Cataqua that the emperor grant his church small estates which his predecessor Paul had bought fraudulently while in debt to the treasury.
96.3Augustine asks Olympius to support the renewed petition, which would be praised as Christian piety.
97.1Augustine writes to Olympius with confidence after receiving his letter offering help to the church.
97.2Augustine asks Olympius to hasten a declaration that the laws against idols and heretics issued under Stilicho were the emperor's own will.
97.3Augustine, on behalf of the African bishops, urges Olympius to have the emperor confirm the laws quickly, before the bishops sent to court arrive.
97.4Many have been converted through the laws, and Augustine fears for their perseverance under attack; he asks Olympius to pass a memorandum to the bishops.
98.1Augustine answers Boniface that parents who offer baptized infants to demons cannot bind them with their sin, since inherited guilt comes only from Adam, in whom all were one.
98.2The one Holy Spirit makes others' faith profit the infant at baptism, but sin cannot be shared that way, so baptismal grace is lost only by the child's own later sins.
98.3Such parents are spiritual murderers in intent, but, as Cyprian's On the Lapsed implies, the infants themselves lose nothing before God.
98.4The infant in Cyprian's story who spat out the Eucharist was a divine sign to the adults, like Balaam's ass, not an act of the child's knowledge.
98.5Infants are truly regenerated even if presented for bodily healing, because the whole church, through the Holy Spirit, offers them; even heretics' baptism is valid.
98.6Infants need not be presented by their own parents; masters, rescuers of exposed children and consecrated virgins also present them, like the Good Samaritan.
98.7Boniface asks how sponsors can answer that an infant believes and turns to God when they cannot say whether he will be chaste or honest.
98.8Augustine recalls Nebridius's dislike of short answers to great questions, but agrees to answer Boniface briefly since both are busy bishops.
98.9Sacraments take the names of what they signify, as Easter is called the day of the passion and the sacrament of Christ's body is called his body; so the sacrament of faith is called faith.
98.10The infant is made faithful by the sacrament of faith, which protects him and, if he dies before reason, frees him from Adam's condemnation.
99.1Augustine, writing to the widow Italica, regrets that she sent no news of the sufferings at Rome, since sharing tribulation is part of love.
99.2Sharing in others' sufferings lightens them through love, and God consoles those who fight in hope of the crown.
99.3Augustine greets Italica's children and explains that the house requested from the church at Hippo cannot be given, since it is old church property.
100.1Augustine welcomes the new proconsul Donatus but begs him not to punish Donatist crimes against the church with the full severity, still less with death.
100.2Augustine asks Donatus to renounce the death penalty for Donatists, to publish that the laws remain in force, and to have them instructed by documents rather than merely compelled.
101.1Augustine apologizes to Bishop Memorius for not yet sending his corrected books, and introduces Possidius, trained on the Lord's bread rather than liberal letters.
101.2Only what accords with truth is truly liberal; poets, orators and philosophers who did not know God are not, though honest history has some nearness to freedom.
101.3Augustine explains that he wrote six books on rhythm in his leisure before ordination, as steps toward truth, and that five are hard to follow without a reader.
101.4Augustine sends the sixth book of On Music, expresses his longing to see the deacon Julian, and admits he does not know the metre of David's psalms.
102.1Augustine sends the presbyter Deogratias his answers to six questions put by a pagan friend, and asks him to answer the friend briefly himself.
102.2The first pagan question asks whether the promised resurrection resembles Christ's or Lazarus's, and why the risen Christ ate and showed wounds.
102.3Christ's resurrection, not Lazarus's, is the pattern, since he dies no more; a different birth makes no difference to death or resurrection.
102.4Animals born from the earth and from parents live and die alike, so bodies of different origin can rise alike.
102.5Raising long-dissolved bodies is as easy to God as raising Christ's on the third day; nature, like the seed holding the tree, is full of greater wonders.
102.6The risen body, like angels who ate with Abraham, will be able to eat by power without needing to.
102.7Christ showed real scars, not wounds, to prove the same body had risen, as a soldier might keep scars as badges of honour.
102.8The second question, taken from Porphyry, asks what became of all the souls who lived before Christ came.
102.9The same objection applies to pagan rites, which were instituted at definite times and so were unavailable to those who died before them.
102.10Pagans who say their gods were served differently in different times must allow the same for the one true religion, whose rites follow God's will.
102.11Christ, the unchangeable Word through whom all things were made, has governed all ages by suitable means, before and after his incarnation.
102.12All who believed in Christ and lived piously from the beginning of the human race were saved through him; one true religion has existed under different signs.
102.13Christians do not fault paganism for changing its rites over time, but for worshipping false gods; what suits each time is set by providence.
102.14Christ appeared when and where he foreknew there would be believers; in earlier ages he foresaw that people would not have believed even his miracles.
102.15Believers in Christ existed in every age and even outside Israel; the true religion was never lacking to anyone worthy of it.
102.16The third question objects that Christians condemn pagan sacrifices though their own God once required offerings.
102.17Sacrifice is as old as Cain and Abel and is owed only to the true God, who needs nothing; sacrifices are signs of spiritual realities.
102.18Demons demand temples and sacrifices because they know these belong to God; the fault of paganism is offering them to idols and demons.
102.19Scripture mocks senseless idols and identifies the gods of the nations as demons; true religion condemns sacrifice to demons, not sacrifice as such.
102.20Allegorical interpretations of pagan rites point to creatures, not the Creator; sacrifice is owed to God alone, and holy angels and men refuse it.
102.21God's word foretold that the sacrifices would change with the coming of Christ's one sacrifice, without any change in God or religion.
102.22The fourth question claims that Christ's eternal punishment contradicts his saying about being repaid by the same measure.
102.23Not every measure is one of time; even the sun, which pagans think everlasting, has a measure, so eternal punishment can be measured.
102.24The saying about measure need not mean identical or equal-length punishment; it may be as great in force while longer in duration.
102.25The measure differs from what is measured, and in context Christ means that each will be judged in the very will and judgment by which he acted.
102.26Sin is measured by the will, not by duration; so punishments may be equally eternal yet differ in severity.
102.27Eternal punishment answers the sinner's will to enjoy sin eternally, so it is consistent with the saying about measure.
102.28The fifth question asks whether Solomon said that God has no son.
102.29Solomon did not deny that God has a son but spoke of him, as in Proverbs 8 and 30, which Augustine reads of Christ.
102.30The sixth question, from pagan mockery, asks how Jonah survived in the whale and what the gourd meant.
102.31Jonah's preservation is no harder to believe than the resurrection; the monster's size, attested by ribs displayed at Carthage, made it possible, clothes or no clothes.
102.32Those who reject this miracle must reject all, including the three men in the furnace; pagans would admire it if told of Apuleius or Apollonius.
102.33One may ask what Jonah's story signifies, but first believe it happened; God speaks by deeds as well as words.
102.34Christ himself explained Jonah's three days as a sign of his death and resurrection, after which the message reached the Gentiles as Jonah's reached Nineveh.
102.35Augustine reads Jonah under the gourd as carnal Israel, the gourd as the Old Testament promises, and the worm that withered it as Christ.
102.36The “morning worm” is Christ, who calls himself a worm in Psalm 22 and rose at dawn; let the pagans laugh, for they are being consumed.
102.37Psalm 22's prophecy of the mocked worm and of the nations' conversion is fulfilled; other details of Jonah may be variously explained, but the three days must be read as Christ taught.
102.38Augustine urges the questioner to become a Christian now rather than wait until every question is settled, lest he die without faith.
103.1Nectarius, a pagan of Calama, writing to Augustine, compares Augustine's letter to the eloquence of Cicero turned philosopher.
103.2Nectarius welcomes Augustine's call to the heavenly city but argues that the earthly fatherland must not be deserted, since those who serve it are rewarded in heaven.
103.3Nectarius argues that losing property is worse than death, and that, since repentance earns pardon and all sins are equal, his fellow citizens should be pardoned.
103.4Nectarius pleads that Augustine consider the suffering of families if citizens are punished, and especially spare the innocent.
104.1Augustine answers Nectarius's late reply, denying any wish that the citizens of Calama be tortured or executed, and asks what rumour prompted his fear.
104.2Augustine says Nectarius misreported his letter, and restates the argument Nectarius drew from it.
104.3Poverty is never a sin and cannot cause eternal misery; death ends evils only for the righteous, as the better philosophers and Scripture agree.
104.4Nectarius should fear luxury, not poverty, for his people; Augustine never wished them reduced to want.
104.5Augustine quotes his earlier letter: the offenders' lives and livelihood are to be spared, and only the wealth with which they live wickedly, which paid for idols and the burning of the church, may be taken.
104.6Augustine does not wish them reduced to the poverty of old Roman heroes, but only that fear for their superfluous wealth restrain them from further crimes.
104.7Love sometimes withholds what is asked, as one keeps a sword from a child or pulls a boy away from snakes; a good ruler serves the people's good, not their wishes.
104.8A Christian forgives readily and never seeks vengeance, but forgiveness does not exclude restraining and correcting.
104.9True repentance looks to God's judgment; Christians involved in the riot were reconciled by penance, but pagans who mock the faith are restrained for their own good, and Augustine prays for their conversion.
104.10Augustine claims to love Nectarius's fellow citizens better than he does, and urges him to lead them himself toward true religion.
104.11God's counsel about Calama is unknown; better to turn now to Christ, who alone truly fulfils Virgil's words about wiping away the traces of crime.
104.12Nectarius's word “seek” rightly implies that many religions seek the heavenly city but only one way reaches it, though Scripture speaks of many ways that are one.
104.13Christ is the way to mercy and truth; the Stoic doctrine that all sins are equal is absurd, equating a laugh with burning one's city.
104.14Nectarius asserts but does not prove that all sins are equal; on that logic mice would equal elephants.
104.15Even Nectarius did not equate burning the church with insolent words; mercy is owed to the penitent, and he should not teach his son Paradoxus Stoic paradoxes.
104.16Stoic hardness condemns the mercy Nectarius asks for; Cicero praised Caesar's mercy, and Christians practise mercy with truth, which sometimes means restraint.
104.17Augustine was not joking about Calama's thorns while the church still smokes; he distinguished degrees of guilt and refused torture, unlike the Stoics, who would punish all equally.
105.1Augustine, writing to the Donatists, answers their threats: they have stolen Christ's sheep and marked them with his baptism, which the Lord does not erase when he brings them back.
105.2The charge of being traditors was never proved; the Donatist claim that the church survives only in Africa has no Scripture, while Christ promised a church among all nations.
105.3The imperial laws were provoked by Donatist violence, as shown by recent attacks on converts at Casphaliana, Victoriana and Urga.
105.4Augustine recounts Donatist threats at Sinitum and the attempt by Crispinus's party to burn Bishop Possidius alive, whose fine Possidius had remitted.
105.5The Donatists suffer for their crimes, not as martyrs; the authorities rightly resist their violence, and many converts wish to be compelled so as to escape it.
105.6The Donatists spread a false report of an imperial pardon; Catholics rely not on men but on Christ, whom the prophets said kings would serve.
105.7Kings who hold the truth rightly legislate for it, as Nebuchadnezzar did after the furnace; the Donatists themselves say Amen to his edict in the liturgy.
105.8Augustine recounts how the Donatists took Caecilian's case to Constantine and lost at Rome, at Arles, before the emperor, and in the trial of Felix of Abthugni.
105.9From Constantine on, Christian emperors legislated against the Donatists; only Julian the Apostate favoured them, and the sons of Theodosius follow Constantine.
105.10Constantine's judgment, sought by the Donatists themselves, still stands; they would rather have Julian back, though freedom for error is the soul's worst death.
105.11When emperors command unity, Christ commands through them, as Paul forbade divisions; Catholics persecuted by heretical emperors were true martyrs.
105.12The imperial law rightly states that baptism does not depend on the minister's merit; the Donatist view would make an unknown bad minister preferable to a known good one.
105.13Augustine pleads for unity, says God corrects the Donatists through the Catholics and the laws, and notes that their bishops refuse to debate, though Christ answered even the devil.
105.14The same Scriptures that reveal Christ reveal a worldwide church, as a series of paired texts from Genesis and the Psalms shows.
105.15Daniel's stone, Zephaniah, Habakkuk and Isaiah 53–54 likewise reveal both Christ and the worldwide church.
105.16Catholics correct the bad where they can and tolerate the rest without sharing their sins, as Christ's parables of the tares, chaff and net teach, and as he bade obey bad leaders' teaching.
105.17If the Donatists believe the Scriptures about the unseen Christ, they should believe them about the visible church; Augustine prays that God kill their error, not them.
106.1Augustine warns the Donatist bishop Macrobius not to rebaptize a Catholic subdeacon, since the Donatists do not rebaptize those baptized by the Maximianist Felicianus, now reconciled with them.
107.1Maximus and Theodorus report to Augustine that the Donatist bishop Macrobius heard his letter but refused to answer on the case of Primianus.
108.1Augustine asks the Donatist bishop Macrobius why he rebaptizes Catholics when his own party accepted the baptism given by the Maximianist Felicianus.
108.2Augustine turns Macrobius's refusal to judge his predecessor against the Donatist demand that the whole church judge Caecilian.
108.3Augustine appeals to Isaiah's command to call one's haters brothers and protests that the Donatists divide Christ by men's names and exorcise his baptism.
108.4Augustine praises the Donatists' own acceptance of Felicianus's baptism and argues that Macrobius cannot refuse to judge Primian while judging the whole world for Caecilian.
108.5Augustine recounts how the Council of Bagai condemned Maximian and his ordainers, yet the Donatists later received Felicianus and Praetextatus in their honors without rebaptizing those they had baptized.
108.6Augustine answers the Donatists' proof texts on baptism one by one, showing that their own reception of the Maximianists refutes each.
108.7Augustine answers the Donatist texts on separation: one shares in others' sins by consent, not by bodily communion, as the parable of the net shows.
108.8Augustine cites Daniel, the three young men, the prophets, the apostles with Judas, and Paul as examples of the righteous who tolerated the wicked without separating.
108.9Augustine argues that Cyprian, whom the Donatists cite for rebaptism, loved unity above all and was purified by martyrdom within it.
108.10Augustine shows that Cyprian rebuked greedy colleagues without separating from them and taught that the church must not be deserted because of the tares in it.
108.11Augustine quotes Cyprian's warning that only the Lord may separate wheat from tares, and that those who presume to do so perish from the church.
108.12Augustine concludes that those who leave the church's unity in the name of their own righteousness are themselves the tares and chaff.
108.13Augustine argues that the Donatists' lenient treatment of the Maximianists refutes their claim that the whole world was polluted by Caecilian.
108.14Augustine answers the Donatist boast of persecution by pointing to their own persecution of the Maximianists and to the violence of the Circumcellions.
108.15Augustine shows that the Council of Bagai applied the text about feet swift to shed blood to Felicianus and Praetextatus, who were later received in full honor.
108.16Augustine argues that any honest Donatist defense of the Maximianist affair must adopt the Catholic principles on baptism, tolerance of the wicked, and moderate coercion.
108.17Augustine lists the evils of the schism, which divides the flock, married couples, and neighbors at the very altar.
108.18Augustine describes the Circumcellions' violence against landowners and masters and the Donatist clergy's dependence on them.
108.19Augustine explains that the occasion of the letter is the rebaptism of Rusticianus, an excommunicated and indebted subdeacon, and recalls a similar case that ended in violence.
108.20Augustine appeals to Macrobius to keep the peace of Christ, citing the ark in which clean and unclean animals were carried together until the flood ended.
109.1Severus, bishop of Milevis, writes to Augustine of the joy and nourishment he finds in reading his works.
109.2Severus praises Augustine's ministry for leading readers through love of neighbor to the love of God, which has no measure.
109.3Severus explains that the preceding letter was written in a time of leisure, and asks when and where he should meet Augustine.
110.1Augustine replies to Severus, explaining why his answer was delayed and that he remains in his debt.
110.2Augustine tells Severus that the sincerity of his praise leaves him in debt, since modesty forbids him to praise Severus in return.
110.3Augustine explains that untrue things can be said faithfully, as Severus has done in praising him.
110.4Augustine asks Severus not to be misled by affection into overpraising him, and explains why he does not praise Severus in return.
110.5Augustine explains that justice requires repaying a debt before giving gifts, and that his duties leave him almost no time.
110.6Augustine asks Severus and his other friends to shield him from requests for further writings, since he owes his time first to all.
111.1Augustine replies to the presbyter Victorianus that disasters afflict the whole world, including the violence of the Donatists and Circumcellions around Hippo.
111.2Augustine says the calamities were foretold, and answers pagan complaints that Christianity brought them with the parable of the servant who knew his master's will.
111.3Augustine answers those who ask why God's servants suffer by quoting the confession of sins made by Azariah in the furnace.
111.4Augustine quotes Daniel's prayer of confession in captivity to show that even the holiest acknowledge that God justly chastises them for their sins.
111.5Augustine explains that God delivered Daniel and the three men to convert their kings, but not the Maccabean martyrs, who also confessed that they suffered for their sins.
111.6Augustine urges Victorianus to forbid murmuring against God, since it matters not how God's servants die but in what state they go to him.
111.7Augustine comforts Victorianus about captive consecrated women, telling how a captive nun's prayers healed her captors and won her release.
111.8Augustine asks Victorianus to pray that the captive women may offer God the sacrifice of a humble spirit, as Azariah did when no sacrifice was possible.
111.9Augustine teaches that women who suffer rape without consent remain chaste, since the guilt is the attacker's alone.
112.1Augustine writes to the former official Donatus, regretting that he could not meet him while in office and urging him to seek heavenly rather than earthly glory.
112.2Augustine reports the universal praise of Donatus's administration and reminds him that true worth lies in the deeds themselves, not in popular fame.
112.3Augustine urges Donatus to look to Christ and to encourage his people around Siniti and Hippo to join the Catholic Church.
113.1Augustine asks Cresconius to ensure that Faventius, seized after taking refuge in the church, receives the thirty days' grace granted by imperial law.
114.1Augustine writes to the officer Florentinus, who seized Faventius, sending him again the imperial law on the thirty days' grace and asking him to observe it.
115.1Augustine tells Bishop Fortunatus how Faventius was seized after taking refuge in the church, and asks him to deliver a letter to the governor requesting a delay of the trial.
116.1Augustine asks the governor Generosus to act as a just and Christian judge in the case of Faventius described in his letter to Fortunatus.
117.1Dioscorus, a young student about to sail home, begs Augustine to answer his questions on Cicero's dialogues so that he will not be thought ignorant.
118.1Augustine replies to Dioscorus that he has no time for his many questions and would rather cure his curiosity than feed it.
118.2Augustine argues that it would be unbecoming for a busy bishop to expound Cicero to a single student, sailing or not.
118.3Augustine rebukes Dioscorus for studying only to escape the reproach of ignorance, quoting Persius against him.
118.4Augustine points out that Dioscorus fears only to be thought ignorant, and warns that one who fears such opinions is dry wood.
118.5Augustine argues that studying merely to avoid being thought ignorant is an empty end that blinds the mind to the truth.
118.6Augustine warns that seeking fame as a means to wealth, marriage, or honors only leads from one unstable good to another, whereas the truth is near and free.
118.7Augustine argues that if Dioscorus wanted learning in order to win a hearing for the truth, he should rather learn the rules of truth themselves.
118.8Augustine asks whether the false opinion of fault-finders should move Dioscorus to burden bishops with his questions.
118.9Augustine observes that no one in Rome, Carthage, or the Greek East cares about such questions, and that he himself, once a teacher of rhetoric, no longer deals in boyish things.
118.10Augustine warns Dioscorus that in Greece he would rather be blamed for learning Greek philosophy from Latin dialogues instead of the Greek originals.
118.11Augustine tells Dioscorus that Christian teaching needs no knowledge of Cicero to win hearers; his conduct should make them attentive.
118.12Augustine argues that the defender of the faith should study the living heresies of his day rather than long-dead philosophers.
118.13Augustine shows Dioscorus that the knowledge needed is how to be happy: the highest good lies not in the body or the mind but in God.
118.14Augustine argues that the highest good cannot be in the body, since the mind is better than the body, and notes the Epicureans who placed it there.
118.15Augustine argues that the mind is not its own highest good, since it is changeable and made wise by the unchangeable Wisdom, which is God; the Stoics erred in placing the good in the mind.
118.16Augustine explains that the Platonists, who placed the highest good in the enjoyment of God, opposed both the Epicureans and the Stoics while concealing their own doctrine.
118.17Augustine explains that the Platonists lacked the example of Christ's humility and so could not lead the crowds to belief in the invisible God.
118.18Augustine notes that in natural philosophy the crowds would side with the materialist schools against the Platonists' incorporeal Wisdom.
118.19Augustine shows that in logic too the Platonists' teaching that truth is grasped by the intellect alone would not be heard against schools that trusted the senses.
118.20Augustine notes that the dispute between Platonists and materialists lasted until the apostolic age, when Epicureans and Stoics opposed Paul at Athens.
118.21Augustine observes that the old philosophical sects have fallen silent and that the Platonists, with a few changes, should submit to Christ, the incarnate Word.
118.22Augustine tells Dioscorus that the way to truth is humility, first, second, and third, as the orator said of delivery.
118.23Augustine shows that one who knows that God is present everywhere whole, like truth, and that the Word is begotten in a unique way, need not trouble about Anaximenes' view that air is God.
118.24Augustine accepts Anaxagoras's “Mind” as a name for divine Wisdom and answers Cicero's objections, which treat the infinite as if it were a body.
118.25Augustine examines Cicero's objection that Anaxagoras's Mind must be either a living being with a body or beyond understanding.
118.26Augustine says that the incorporeal Wisdom escapes only materialists, and that truth is to be loved because it is true, not because Anaxagoras knew it.
118.27Augustine deplores Democritus's teaching that the gods are images flowing from bodies, and asks from what body the image of truth could come.
118.28Augustine describes the atomist theories of Democritus and Epicurus about the gods and the images by which things are thought of.
118.29Augustine refutes the atomist theory of images by showing that vast images could not touch a small mind or small eyes as wholes.
118.30Augustine reports Cicero's refutation of the Epicurean claim that gods made of flowing atoms and images could be eternal.
118.31Augustine argues that chance collisions of atoms could not produce ordered forms and that the atomists' own theory of images undermines the existence of atoms.
118.32Augustine argues that the incarnation of Truth was the best provision for leading humanity to truth by faith, and that the church combines authority with reason.
118.33Augustine recounts how the Platonists of Plotinus's school either fell into magic or became Christians, so that authority and reason are now found in Christ and his church.
118.34Augustine closes by explaining that he has annotated most of Dioscorus's questions on the parchment itself but omitted those on Cicero's rhetorical works.
119.1Consentius writes to Augustine that divine truth must be grasped by faith rather than reason, as the errors of the Arians and Macedonians show.
119.2Consentius asks Augustine to explain to him, as far as possible, the ineffable divine substance and to correct his errors and his books.
119.3Consentius explains that he had thought of God as an infinite light with form and beauty, and reports an objection to his book about the risen Christ's body.
119.4Consentius quotes the passage of his book on the unity of God and the three persons, by which he argued that Christ is everywhere by divinity, not by body.
119.5Consentius reports Augustine's teaching that God must be thought of without bodily images, like justice, and objects that justice is not a living being.
119.6Consentius asks Augustine to correct his error openly and fully, for the sake of many in the islands who share it, as he had invited him to do in the preface to his books.
120.1Augustine replies to Consentius, urging him to come and read his works with him and to mark the passages that trouble him.
120.2Augustine points out that Consentius's request for an explanation of the Trinity contradicts his own claim that reason should not be sought, and asks him to correct it.
120.3Augustine argues that faith precedes the reason that cannot yet be grasped, yet a small reason, which persuades us to believe, precedes faith.
120.4Augustine explains that reason must be given to believers according to their capacity, while they keep to the way of faith, which alone leads to the vision of God.
120.5Augustine notes that some truths become credible once reasoned out, while God sometimes hides the reason of his miracles so that they may still rouse wonder and faith.
120.6Augustine distinguishes true reason from the false reasoning of the Arians and Macedonians, and notes that philosophers who accepted Christ crucified found the fishermen ahead of them.
120.7Augustine rejects as a kind of idolatry the picture of the Trinity as three bodily masses in heaven sharing a fourth, omnipresent divinity.
120.8Augustine explains that faith prepares for reason, that true faith is better than false reason, and that faith seeks understanding with hope and love.
120.9Augustine distinguishes past things, believed only; future things, believed and hoped for; and eternal things, some invisible and seen by understanding, some visible like Christ's risen body.
120.10Augustine explains that visible things not yet seen are imagined, whereas invisible things like justice are beheld by the mind in an incorporeal light.
120.11Augustine distinguishes bodily things, images of bodies, and intelligible things like wisdom, and argues that the Trinity must be thought of in the highest kind, free of all bodily likeness.
120.12Augustine teaches that the Trinity surpasses all bodily things and is to be approached through understanding the soul made in God's image, or else held by faith until the promised vision.
120.13Augustine sets out the rule of faith on the Trinity, tells Consentius to reject every bodily image of God, and urges him to love understanding.
120.14Augustine urges Consentius to pray for understanding and shows from Isaiah's conflicting images that Scripture's bodily language about God must be understood spiritually.
120.15Augustine explains that “the right hand” of the Father means blessedness, and interprets “Do not touch me” as a call to touch Christ by faith in his equality with the Father.
120.16Augustine rejects the view that the persons are localized in heaven while their common divinity is everywhere, since the divinity can be neither a quality nor another substance.
120.17Augustine argues that the divinity cannot be something other than the Trinity, since the three are one God by being of one and the same substance or essence.
120.18Augustine answers Consentius that justice does live in itself, since souls that lose it are called dead, and justice is the life of lives.
120.19Augustine identifies the justice that lives in itself with God, in whom we participate by cleaving to him, as Christ was made our justice.
120.20Augustine concludes that God's beauty, like the beauty of justice in the inner man, is not bodily, and urges Consentius to correct his own errors humbly.
121.1Paulinus of Nola sends Augustine a set of questions on difficult passages of Scripture.
121.2Paulinus asks what Psalm 16 means by the “saints in his land,” suggesting it refers to the Jews who glory in descent and the law, like the Pharisee in the parable.
121.3Paulinus contrasts the proud Pharisee with the humble tax collector, and righteousness from the law with the righteousness of faith reckoned to Abraham.
121.4Paulinus suggests that God made his will wonderful among the Jews through the law and the incarnation and miracles of Christ, whom they rejected.
121.5Paulinus asks whether “afterward they hastened” means the repentance of those converted at Pentecost or the haste of those who demanded Christ's crucifixion.
121.6Paulinus asks for an explanation of Psalm 17:14 and its variant readings “pork” and “sons.”
121.7Paulinus asks why Psalm 59 prays that the Jews not be killed lest they forget the law, and suggests reasons from the honor of the law and the elect of Israel in Revelation.
121.8Paulinus asks about the “crown of the hair” and the “tongue of your dogs” in Psalm 68.
121.9Paulinus asks Augustine to distinguish the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers of Ephesians 4:11, especially pastors from teachers.
121.10Paulinus asks how the four kinds of prayer in 1 Timothy 2:1 differ.
121.11Paulinus asks how the Jews can be both enemies for the Gentiles' sake and beloved for the sake of the fathers, as Romans 11:28 says.
121.12Paulinus asks what Colossians 2:18 means by the “religion of angels,” suggesting it refers to heretics who teach doctrines of demons.
121.13Paulinus asks Augustine to explain Colossians 2:21–23, which seems to attribute wisdom and humility to superstition and to join “not sparing the body” with “satisfaction of the flesh.”
121.14Paulinus asks Augustine to send again, or rewrite, an earlier letter on the form of the resurrection body.
121.15Paulinus asks how the risen Christ, in the same body, was at first not recognized and then recognized.
121.16Paulinus suggests that Mary was told “Do not touch me” because she did not yet recognize Christ as God by faith.
121.17Paulinus asks whether Simeon's prophecy of a sword piercing Mary's soul refers to her grief at the cross, where Christ entrusted her to John.
121.18Paulinus suggests that the sword of Simeon's prophecy is the word of God, and asks how it relates to the revealing of the thoughts of many hearts.
122.1Augustine writes to his clergy and people at Hippo, asking them not to be saddened by his absence and urging them to persevere in good works in view of eternal life.
122.2Augustine urges the people of Hippo to resume their custom of clothing the poor and to store up treasure in heaven as the world's troubles increase.
123.1Jerome sends Augustine a brief note about people who cling to their former error, with greetings to Alypius and Evodius.
124.1Augustine writes to Albina, Pinianus, and Melania, then at Thagaste, of his distress at being unable to visit them.
124.2Augustine explains that the distress of his people at Hippo, already troubled by his absence, kept him from visiting.
125.1Augustine writes to Alypius that the suspicion that they sought Pinianus's wealth is more grievous than the people's insults.
125.2Augustine judges that Albina and her family should be healed of their suspicion of the clergy's greed, and urges Alypius that they take care to be above reproach before men.
125.3Augustine rejects the idea that Pinianus's oath, given under the crowd's pressure, could lawfully be broken, citing Regulus and the Roman censors.
125.4Augustine explains that an oath binds according to the known expectation of those to whom it is sworn, so Pinianus may travel but must keep his promise to reside at Hippo.
125.5Augustine reports that only one monk joined the crowd's shouting, and encloses a copy of Pinianus's signed promise.
126.1Augustine gives Albina his account of how the crowd at Hippo demanded Pinianus as presbyter and insulted Alypius, and how he refused to break his promise.
126.2Augustine explains that he kept both his promises, neither ordaining Pinianus against his will nor urging him to accept, and could not safely leave with or without Alypius.
126.3Augustine relates how Pinianus offered to swear that he would reside at Hippo if not ordained against his will, and how the people demanded that any future ordination be at Hippo.
126.4Augustine recounts how a clause excusing Pinianus in case of necessity provoked the crowd and was withdrawn.
126.5Augustine reports that Pinianus swore and signed before the people, and that Augustine's own signature was left incomplete at Melania's objection.
126.6Augustine insists that Pinianus swore in his presence but not at his command, and that the people sought his ordination, not his oath, as God's work.
126.7Augustine argues that the people loved Pinianus's renunciation of wealth rather than coveting it, as they had loved his own renunciation of his small inheritance.
126.8Augustine says that the suspicion of greed can fall only on the clergy, and that Albina's suspicion compels him to call God to witness.
126.9Augustine calls God to witness that he bears the administration of church property out of duty, not love of it, and that Alypius is of the same mind.
126.10Augustine cites Paul's oath in 1 Thessalonians 2:5 as precedent for calling God to witness, and asks that the people not be accused of greed.
126.11Augustine tells Albina that an oath must be kept even when given under fear, as even soldiers keep oaths sworn to enemies.
126.12Augustine denies that residence at Hippo is a form of exile and insists that the oath was offered, not extorted.
126.13Augustine explains that the people expect only that Pinianus reside at Hippo with the intention of returning from any journey, and that the necessity clause was withdrawn by Pinianus himself.
126.14Augustine urges that Pinianus keep his promise for the sake of the weak, and defends his own acceptance of the oath.
127.1Augustine urges Armentarius, who with his wife has vowed continence, to fulfill his vow without delay.
127.2Augustine contrasts the great efforts made to prolong this brief and uncertain life with the far greater reason to strive for eternal life.
127.3Augustine warns that excessive love of this life leads many to offend God and lose eternal life.
127.4Augustine points to those who gave up all their wealth to save their lives in the sack of Rome as a lesson in how eternal life should be loved.
127.5Augustine urges that this life be made the servant of eternal life by taking Christ's easy yoke, under which a good will finds rest.
127.6Augustine explains that in fulfilling a vow one pays oneself to God, whose image man bears as the coin bore Caesar's.
127.7Augustine distinguishes Christians who love the world from those who despise it, citing the parable of the houses built on rock and on sand.
127.8Augustine tells Armentarius that, having vowed continence, he is now bound to it, and that breaking the vow would make him worse than if he had never made it.
127.9Augustine explains that a vow of continence in marriage requires the consent of both spouses, and since Paulina consents, urges Armentarius to keep it with her.
128.1The Catholic bishops write to the tribune Marcellinus accepting his edict on the arrangements for the conference with the Donatists at Carthage.
128.2The Catholic bishops pledge to give up their sees if the Donatists prove their case, and offer the Donatist bishops their episcopal rank if they join Catholic unity.
128.3The Catholic bishops propose that former Donatist bishops share sees with Catholic bishops, or that both resign for the sake of unity.
128.4The bishops ask that the Donatists be reconciled, noting their own lenient reception of the Maximianists, and the letter is signed by Aurelius of Carthage and Silvanus of Summa.
129.1The Catholic bishops express concern to Marcellinus that the Donatists' wish to attend the conference in full numbers may cause disorder, while hoping it will lead to unity.
129.2The bishops argue from Luke 24:46–47 that the gospel attests both Christ's resurrection and the church's spread through all nations.
129.3The bishops hope that the Donatists, having searched the Scriptures, will see that they foretell a worldwide church and none confined to Africa.
129.4The bishops defend imperial laws against heretics by the example of ancient kings and the Donatists' own appeal to Constantine, who acquitted Caecilian and Felix of Aptunga.
129.5The bishops argue that the Donatists' own treatment of the Maximianists, including appeals to the state and acceptance of their baptism, condemns their case against the Catholics.
129.6The bishops argue that the Donatists' numbers could be shown by their signatures, and that a full assembly would only hinder the conference.
129.7The bishops agree that all the Donatists may attend, while limiting their own numbers, and hope that the assembly will end in brotherly unity.
130.1Augustine begins his letter to the widow Proba on prayer, praising her concern to pray night and day.
130.2God, for whom it is easy to save the rich, has inspired Proba's concern to pray, and the rich must hope in God, not in riches.
130.3True consolation, like true life, is found not in riches or honors but in God, who makes people good and so happy.
130.4Good friends console in this life, but since no one's heart is fully known, even this comfort is uncertain and judgment must be left to the Lord.
130.5In this dark life the Christian soul should count itself desolate and keep praying, looking to Scripture until it sees God in the true life to come, where prayer will give way to contemplation.
130.6Proba should feel desolate even amid her family until she reaches the life of true consolation.
130.7A true widow must count herself desolate and not set her heart on pleasures, caring for the body only for the sake of health.
130.8Many saints gave their riches to the poor; Proba must at least not set her heart on her wealth, and the judgment of her conduct belongs to God.
130.9What one should pray for is, in brief, the happy life, which all desire but only the good attain.
130.10The happy life is not living as one wishes, as even Cicero saw, since to wish what is unfitting is the worst misery.
130.11Marriage, continence, children and health may all be fittingly desired, but having them does not yet make one happy.
130.12Honors and a sufficiency of goods may be fittingly sought, not for themselves but for the good of others and of bodily health.
130.13Well-being and friendship are sought for their own sake, and friendship extends to all people, even enemies; we should pray to keep or gain them.
130.14All temporal goods must be referred to eternal life with God; we love God for himself and ourselves and our neighbors for his sake, but are not yet happy.
130.15The one thing to ask is to dwell in God's house; Christ forbade much speaking yet urged persistent prayer by the parables of the unjust judge and the friend at midnight.
130.16Christ's sayings on asking, seeking, and knocking are interpreted allegorically: fish, egg, and bread signify faith, hope, and love.
130.17God, who knows our needs, has us pray so that our desire may be exercised and enlarged to receive the great gift he prepares.
130.18We pray always by desire, but pray in words at set times to rekindle that desire; our requests are made known to ourselves, or to the angels, not to God, who knows them already.
130.19Long prayer is not the forbidden 'much speaking', for Christ himself prayed all night and at length.
130.20The Egyptian monks' short, frequent prayers show that attention matters; prayer is a matter more of groans and tears than of many words.
130.21Augustine explains each petition of the Lord's Prayer as a reminder to ourselves of what we should desire, the bread meaning either sufficiency or the sacrament.
130.22All rightful prayers, including those of Scripture, say in other words what the Lord's Prayer contains; to ask for what it cannot include is to pray carnally.
130.23We should pray these petitions for all, even enemies; prayers for wealth and honor out of greed have no place in the Lord's Prayer.
130.24The happy life is God himself; faith, hope, and love lead the one who prays to him, and fasting, self-restraint, and almsgiving help prayer.
130.25We do not know what to pray for as we ought because tribulations may benefit us, as Paul learned when his prayer to remove the thorn in the flesh was refused.
130.26God sometimes grants impatient requests in anger and refuses others in mercy; we should accept his will, as Christ did in Gethsemane.
130.27The one thing, eternal contemplation of God, may be asked with certainty, yet even it surpasses understanding, so we know only what it is not.
130.28The Spirit's intercession means that he makes the saints pray with unutterable groanings, giving them a 'learned ignorance' of what they desire.
130.29Proba should pray as a widow of Christ, for Scripture specially enjoins prayer on widows, as the examples of Hannah, Anna, and the persistent widow show.
130.30Every soul away from the Lord is a widow; Proba should pray as poor and desolate, and her household of widows and virgins should do likewise.
130.31Augustine asks for their prayers and urges them to fast and keep vigil according to each one's strength, without hindering or pressing one another.
131.1Augustine writes to Proba that the evils of this life, borne with patience and thanksgiving, are turned to good and lead the soul to seek its true rest.
132.1Augustine urges Volusian to read the Scriptures, especially the apostles, and to write to him with any questions.
133.1Augustine begs the tribune Marcellinus not to put to death the Donatist clerics and Circumcellions who confessed to murdering and maiming Catholic presbyters.
133.2Augustine urges Marcellinus, who obtained the confessions without torture, to show the same mildness in sentencing, so that Christian gentleness may be seen.
133.3Augustine, speaking as a bishop, says that clemency serves the church, and asks Marcellinus to pass his letter to the proconsul.
134.1Augustine writes to the proconsul Apringius, a Christian, reminding him of God's judgment and asking leave to advise him.
134.2Augustine tells Apringius of the Donatists' confessed crimes and begs him not to sentence them to death.
134.3The sword is given to the magistrate, but the church's cause calls for clemency, and Augustine appeals to Apringius as a fellow Christian.
134.4Augustine argues that executing the Donatists would discredit the church's martyrs and asks Apringius to spare them so that they may have time to repent.
135.1Volusian writes to Augustine describing a gathering of friends where rhetoric, poetry, and the philosophical schools were discussed.
135.2Volusian reports a friend's objections to the incarnation, the virgin birth, and Christ's miracles, and asks Augustine to answer them.
136.1Marcellinus writes to Augustine that Volusian has sent him questions on the incarnation, and asks him to answer the claim that Apollonius and Apuleius worked greater miracles than Christ.
136.2Marcellinus reports Volusian's further objections: why God changed the sacrifices, and how Christ's teaching on non-retaliation can be compatible with the state, given the evils under Christian emperors.
136.3Marcellinus asks Augustine to answer these questions fully, in books that will serve the church, since a landowner of Hippo claimed he had found no satisfactory answer.
137.1Augustine replies promptly to Volusian, hoping that his talent will serve not only his own salvation but the defense of the faith before others.
137.2Augustine restates Volusian's questions about the virgin birth, the incarnation, and Christ's miracles.
137.3Augustine disclaims the reputation of knowing everything: the depth of Scripture is such that even a lifetime's study leaves one only beginning.
137.4Christian teaching does not say that God left the government of the universe when he took flesh, for God is not a body but is whole everywhere and contained by no place.
137.5The mind should first wonder at itself: in sight and hearing the soul perceives things far outside the flesh in which alone it lives.
137.6If the soul's perception is so wonderful, it should not be incredible that the Word took a body without losing his immortality, eternity, power, or government of the world.
137.7As a spoken word is heard whole by every hearer, so the abiding Word of God is whole everywhere, coming when manifested and departing when hidden.
137.8God is great in power, not size; his power made the virgin fruitful, united a whole man to himself, and brought Christ forth through the inviolate womb as later through closed doors.
137.9Christ's sleeping, eating, and human feelings show he was truly man, against heretics who denied his human nature; he joined both natures in one person.
137.10As God works wonders daily in seeds and nature, he made a man for himself without seed, taking flesh in time without being changed into flesh.
137.11As soul and body form one human person, so God and man form the one person of Christ; the union of two incorporeal realities, the Word and a soul, is easier to believe than that of soul and body.
137.12The eternal Word took a man and became one Christ, equal to the Father in divinity and less in humanity, bringing teaching that confirms what is true and the help of grace to overcome sin.
137.13The prophets also worked miracles, and Moses defeated the magicians; but Christ, foretold by the prophets as Lord, did things uniquely his own: virgin birth, resurrection, and ascension.
137.14Unbelievers despise lesser miracles because others performed them and reject Christ's unique works because no one else did them; Augustine urges Volusian not to be like them.
137.15The order of history from Abraham through Israel's story, foretelling Christ in all its promises and rites, should move the mind to believe.
137.16The coming of Christ, Pentecost, the spread of the church through persecution, the fall of the temple, the dispersion of the Jews carrying the Scriptures, and the rise of heresies all fulfil prophecy.
137.17The two great commandments contain physics, ethics, logic, and the true well-being of the state, surpassing all philosophy and law.
137.18Scripture's style is lowly and accessible yet profound, feeding all with plain truth and exercising them with hidden truth.
137.19Augustine invites Volusian to write at length with any further questions, as the apostles and their expositors did.
137.20Augustine answers those who say Christianity harms the state: they want impunity for vice, but God's grace sustains the faithful in adversity and prosperity until the heavenly city.
138.1Augustine writes to Marcellinus to answer the further objections he reported, so that the letter may be read to the objectors.
138.2Augustine answers the objection that God changed the sacrifices: nature and human arts change their practice with the times while their underlying reason stays the same.
138.3The physician Vindicianus showed that the same remedy may help at one age and harm at another, though the art of medicine stays the same.
138.4What was rightly done may rightly be changed when times change, as what is allowed to one person may not be allowed to another.
138.5God, who knows what fits each time, commanded one sacrifice for the early times and another for now, so that history unfolds like a great song of an ineffable composer.
138.6God commands sacrifices not for his own benefit but for ours; they are signs of his gifts, and the Psalm says God has no need of our goods.
138.7The change from Old to New Testament sacraments shows no change in God; it was foretold by the Psalms and by Jeremiah's promise of a new covenant.
138.8Christ had to be foretold by one set of sacraments before his coming and proclaimed by another after it, just as different tenses suit different times.
138.9To the charge that Christ's teaching on non-retaliation harms the state, Augustine replies that Roman authors themselves praised those who preferred to pardon injuries.
138.10Romans applaud forgiveness in their own authors but accuse the church that preaches it; a city is a multitude bound by concord, which their quarreling gods could not teach.
138.11Christ's precepts of non-retaliation aim to overcome evil with good, so that the wrongdoer may be corrected and restored to concord.
138.12The command to turn the other cheek is not to be taken literally but as teaching patience: temporal things should be yielded for the sake of eternal ones.
138.13Christ and Paul, when struck, did not literally turn the other cheek, showing that the precept concerns the heart's readiness more than the outward act.
138.14Patience lives in the heart, but correction, like a father's or even a just war, may be applied with goodwill for the wrongdoer's good; the prosperity of vice is God's sharpest punishment.
138.15Christian teaching does not forbid military service, as John the Baptist's words to soldiers show; citizens formed by it would be the state's salvation.
138.16The decline of Rome began long before Christ, as Sallust and Juvenal testify, through avarice and luxury, not through Christian teaching.
138.17God sent the cross of Christ as help against moral corruption; Rome's civic virtues built an earthly city, but true religion makes people citizens of the city whose king is truth and whose law is love.
138.18Comparing Apollonius and Apuleius with Christ is laughable; Christian teaching is called an enemy of the state because it exposed the demons behind pagan gods and magic.
138.19Apuleius with all his supposed magic never gained high office and himself denied practicing magic, whereas David rose from shepherd to king without any such arts.
138.20Magicians cannot be compared even with the prophets, still less with Christ whom the prophets foretold; Augustine invites further questions.
139.1Augustine asks Marcellinus for the records of the Donatists' trial, so that their confessions may be read in the churches and posted publicly.
139.2Augustine again asks that the Donatist murderers not be executed, reports the Donatist bishop Macrobius's activity, and cites an imperial precedent of clemency.
139.3Augustine explains his delay in revising his books on infant baptism by listing his urgent writings: the summary of the conference with the Donatists, letters to the Donatist laity, to Marcellinus and Volusian, and a book for Honoratus.
139.4Augustine asks Marcellinus's prayers, commends the church of Numidia and Bishop Delphinus, and recommends Rufinus of Cirta.
140.1Augustine begins his reply to Honoratus's five questions, proposing to treat them together in one continuous discussion.
140.2The five questions are Christ's cry of forsakenness, the breadth and length and height and depth, the five foolish and wise virgins, the outer darkness, and the Word made flesh; Augustine adds a sixth, the grace of the New Testament.
140.3Human life begins entangled in the senses, but at the age of reason one can, helped by God, choose the inner life whose happiness is eternal; the soul stands between the body and its Creator.
140.4The soul uses temporal goods well when it keeps them in order beneath eternal ones; even when it uses goods badly, God uses evil well and orders sinners justly in punishment.
140.5God gave the Old Testament with its earthly promises to show that temporal goods too are his gifts, but the saints of old belonged to the New Testament, which was hidden in figures.
140.6In the fullness of time God sent his Son, the eternal Word through whom all was made, who is present everywhere though the darkness of the ungodly does not grasp him.
140.7John the Baptist, the greatest born of women, bore witness that Christ is God; John was a lamp lit by participation, while Christ is the light itself.
140.8Christ is the true light that enlightens every man, including John; the 'world' that did not know him means unbelievers.
140.9Those who received Christ were given power to become children of God by spiritual birth; this is the grace of the New Testament, hidden in the Old.
140.10Our sonship is by adoption: the Son of God became son of man so that we, remaining human, might share his nature and become sons of God.
140.11Christ, born under the law, redeemed those under the law so that we might receive adoption; the Word made flesh shows that humans can become children of God by sharing in the Word.
140.12The unchangeable Word took flesh through a rational soul, against the Apollinarians; 'flesh' means a whole man, and God and man are one person in Christ.
140.13Christ was not commended by earthly prosperity but by suffering, so that the faithful would seek eternal rewards; Psalm 73 shows the man troubled by the prosperity of the wicked.
140.14In his passion Christ took up the voice of our weakness in the cry 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?', the opening of Psalm 22.
140.15Christ cried out Psalm 22 in the voice of his body, the church, and of human weakness, which had to be denied the goods of the Old Testament so as to learn to hope for those of the New.
140.16Above all people desire to prolong this life; even the devout, though longing to be with Christ, shrink from death and wish to be clothed with immortality without dying.
140.17The desire for longer life is called 'the words of my sins', far from the salvation promised by the New Testament; the verse can be punctuated in two ways.
140.18Christ, as bridegroom one flesh with his bride the church, speaks in her voice on the cross, just as he spoke of the persecuted church as himself to Saul.
140.19God 'forsakes' us by not granting temporal goods, but not for the better things he wants us to desire; he seeks a holy dwelling in the love poured out by the Spirit.
140.20Under the Old Testament God delivered the fathers from earthly dangers, as with Isaac, Job, Daniel, and the three youths; the Jews expected the same for Christ and did not see that eternal goods were now revealed.
140.21'I am a worm and not a man' may mean, besides the virgin birth, 'I am the son of man and not man', that is, Christ in whom all are made alive, not Adam in whom all die.
140.22Earthly deliverance belongs to the old man descended from Adam; the new 'sons of men' in Christ hope for the eternal salvation that Psalm 36 distinguishes from the safety shared with beasts.
140.23The distinction between 'men' and 'sons of men' is not a fixed rule but follows the context; here 'But I' marks Christ off from the fathers delivered under the Old Testament.
140.24Christ's mockers, belonging to the Old Testament, taunted him because he was not delivered; he willed to appear forsaken so that we might seek a happiness now held by faith and later by sight.
140.25Christ showed his risen body not to his persecutors but to his disciples, so that others would believe their testimony, sealed with signs and their own sufferings.
140.26James contrasts Job's endurance, rewarded with temporal goods, with 'the end of the Lord', teaching Christians to hope for eternal goods; the veil of the Old Testament is removed in Christ.
140.27There were martyrs before Christ, and in the New Testament there are faithful rich people who use wealth well; Christ's cry expresses the martyrs' voice, who seem forsaken but submit to the Father's will.
140.28God delivered many fathers from earthly dangers but not Christ, so that his body, the church, might learn to be Christian not for this life but for eternal life.
140.29Many want to be Christians only for earthly happiness; Christ, who laid down his life freely, spoke those words for us, his body.
140.30Psalm 22's words about the womb and breasts express our passing from the goods of the flesh to God as our good; Christ signified this change in his flesh, though he never needed to leave ungodliness.
140.31Augustine weighs how the psalm's words about the womb and the breasts could refer to Christ himself, as man, and to the virgin birth.
140.32Augustine finds it hard to apply 'Upon you I was cast from the womb' to Christ himself, declines to speculate on when the soul enters the body, and prefers to read it of us in him.
140.33'Do not depart from me, for tribulation is near' means that when the body is tortured, suffering comes nearest to the soul, which must struggle and pray not to fail in patience.
140.34As with Job, the devil first attacks external goods and then the body, so as to reach the goods of the mind; Job spoke differently when the tribulation came near.
140.35The martyr, afflicted in the flesh, prays not to be forsaken, since no friend, praise, or human virtue can help without God.
140.36Augustine expounds Psalm 22:12–14 of the passion: the bulls are the rulers, the scattered bones the apostles, and the melting heart either the fear and grief of Christ's weak members or the opening of the Scriptures.
140.37The strength hardened like a potsherd is the church tested by suffering; the tongue cleaving to the jaws is Christ's silence, or preachers who keep close to his precepts.
140.38'You brought me into the dust of death' cannot mean that Christ's body decayed; it refers to the martyrs of his body awaiting resurrection, or figuratively to his persecutors as dust.
140.39Psalm 22:16–17 describes the crucifixion: the dogs are his persecutors, the pierced hands and feet the nails, and those who looked on waited to see whether Elijah would save him.
140.40Christ prays in the person of the head and of the church that God's help not be far off; enemies who kill the flesh do no harm if the soul does not consent to evil.
140.41'Deliver my soul from the sword' refers figuratively to the tongues of Christ's persecutors, or to the sword that would kill his martyrs, whose souls he asks to be delivered.
140.42'My only one' is the one church, the 'dog' is the world, the 'lion' its hostile power and the devil, and the 'unicorns' the proud who oppose humble Christians.
140.43The fruit of Christ's forsaking appears in the psalm's turn to praise: he declares God's name to his brothers in the one Catholic Church spread through all nations.
140.44The 'new song' is sung by Christ in us, in the church spread over all the earth; it is the praise of God sung in the heart.
140.45'You who fear the Lord, praise him' means 'love him'; fear is the beginning of wisdom, preparing a place for love, which then casts out fear.
140.46Under the Old Testament people feared God and offered bloody sacrifices without understanding them; under the New the sacrifice is praise, and God's salvation is Christ, as Simeon recognized.
140.47'All the seed of Jacob' includes all who believe in Christ, the children of promise prefigured by Isaac, not Ishmael.
140.48God foretells sins, threatens punishments, and promises benefits; the children of promise are children of grace, freely given; the thanksgiving in the New Testament sacrifice will be explained after baptism.
140.49Why does the psalm, after 'praise him', say 'let all the seed of Israel fear him', when love casts out fear? Paul too prescribes fear to the Gentiles grafted onto the olive tree.
140.50Christ's words about the centurion foretold the grafting of humble Gentiles and the breaking off of those who, seeking their own righteousness, refused the grace of the promise and go into the outer darkness.
140.51Paul tells the grafted Gentiles not to be proud but to fear, since salvation is God's gift; this fear of losing grace differs from the servile fear of punishment.
140.52Though believers have the spirit of adoption, not of fear, they must still fear lest they grow proud, since their righteousness is received from God.
140.53Love casts out servile fear of punishment but keeps the chaste fear of losing God, like a loving wife who fears her husband's absence rather than his anger.
140.54Those who reject God's righteousness, if they spurn correction, will go into the 'outer darkness'; God is light and love, and the darkness is hatred and pride, into which the devil fell.
140.55The devil and his angels, cold with pride and envy, are figured by the north wind; the Spirit of grace is the warm south wind that melts sins and makes love flow.
140.56The rational creature cannot be its own good; it becomes happy by turning to God and miserable by turning away, growing dark and hard without love.
140.57Unbelievers are darkness, believers become light; the outer darkness is the penal company of the devil and his angels, opposite to the inner joy of the Lord, understood not spatially but in terms of the will.
140.58The outer darkness brings 'weeping and gnashing of teeth'; it may also mean bodily punishment, which alone servile fear dreads, whereas chaste fear clings to God.
140.59God did not despise the prayer of the poor and humble one; though he 'forsook' Christ in temporal things, he heard him and did not depart from him.
140.60Christ's praise is in the great church spread through all nations; confession is also praise, and the poor who eat and are satisfied are the humble 'little ones'.
140.61Christ's 'vows' are the sacrifice of his body, the Eucharist; the poor who eat it and imitate his humility are satisfied, and their hearts live for ever, whereas pride is the beginning of sin.
140.62Love lives by the heavenly bread; its breadth is good works, its length patient endurance, its height the hope of eternal life, and its depth the hidden grace of God's will, as in Ephesians 3.
140.63Augustine expounds Ephesians 3:13–19: rooted and grounded in love by God's free grace, believers grasp its breadth, length, height, and depth, until in the age to come love contemplates and praises God for ever.
140.64The cross figures the four dimensions: the crossbeam is good works, the upright long-suffering, the top hope of heaven, and the hidden foot the depth of free grace.
140.65The satisfied poor are the humble filled with love, first the apostles, whose preaching of grace won the nations.
140.66The nations will turn to the Lord; the 'rich of the earth', the proud, also come to Christ's table and receive his body and blood, but are not satisfied because they do not imitate his humility.
140.67The apostles, poor fishermen and tax collectors, shared their satisfaction by preaching, and the world was converted; the proud lovers of earthly goods come but fall down in God's sight.
140.68'My soul lives for him': believers must live not for themselves in pride but for Christ, doing his will as he did the Father's, and so become the good seed that serves God.
140.69The psalm ends with prophecy: 'the generation to come will be announced to the Lord', not to inform God, but as angels present our prayers, which build us up and testify that God is our good.
140.70Alternatively, the verse means that those who do good to God's praise belong to him; the creature becomes happy by turning from its own good to God, and so gives thanks, as in the Eucharist.
140.71The 'righteousness of God' announced is the righteousness he gives to the saints by free grace, not their own; good works follow justification and do not precede it.
140.72God's righteousness, like his salvation, is that which he gives to those he justifies and saves by grace through baptism; pride, trusting in one's own works, is its opposite.
140.73The grace of the New Testament is the righteousness given to believers: Christ was made 'sin', a sacrifice for sin, so that in his body the church we might be God's righteousness, made righteous by him.
140.74The soul cannot be good by its own will but only by God's free mercy; the wise virgins carry the oil of a good conscience, while the foolish depend on the praise of flatterers.
140.75The wise virgins' reply is humble; their lamps are good works done for God's glory and fed by the oil of a good conscience, while the foolish virgins' lamps fail when human praise is withdrawn.
140.76That all the virgins slept means that both kinds of believers die, death being called sleep because of the resurrection; they await the coming of the bridegroom, Christ.
140.77The virgins signify continence and the five senses, the lamps good works, and the oil the inner intention of loving God; the foolish lack it because they ascribe their good works to themselves and delight in praise.
140.78The bridegroom comes at midnight, when his coming is hidden; the cry is the trumpet of the resurrection, and the virgins trimming their lamps prepare to give account of their works.
140.79At the judgment human praise will vanish; the foolish virgins, who trusted in their own righteousness, find no oil, while the wise trust only in God's mercy and glory in the Lord.
140.80Wisdom mocks the foolish virgins, who still crave empty glory, while the wise, glorying in the Lord, enter the wedding feast and the joy of their Lord.
140.81The foolish virgins seek mercy too late; 'I do not know you' means they did not know God, for knowing God is itself his gift, as he makes us righteous, his workmanship in Christ.
140.82Augustine sums up: all five questions have been answered within the sixth, on the grace of the New Testament, by which the Son of God became man so that we might become children of God.
140.83Augustine has stressed the grace of the New Testament because it has adversaries, continent and orthodox about Christ, who yet attribute their goodness to themselves; they resemble the foolish virgins.
140.84The wise virgins understand that continence is God's gift; the foolish, ungrateful to the giver, will remain outside unless they change before death.
140.85Augustine urges Honoratus to persuade such people that every good, even love of God, is God's gift, so that they may glory in the Lord; he closes by commending reading and prayer, for the inner light is the true teacher.
141.1A council of Catholic bishops (written by Augustine) warns the Donatist laity that their bishops' claim that the judge at the Conference of Carthage was bribed comes from men caught lying in their own mandate.
141.2The letter describes the careful arrangements of the Conference of Carthage: equal delegations, guardians of the record, notaries on both sides, and signatures to every statement.
141.3The Donatist delegates tried to keep the case from being heard at all, which shows they knew their cause was bad.
141.4At the conference the Donatists admitted they had nothing to say against the Catholic Church spread through the world, as Scripture describes it.
141.5Separation from the Catholic Church forfeits life, while within it no one is defiled by others' sins except by consenting to their deeds.
141.6When the Maximianist schism was raised, the Donatists themselves declared that 'neither case prejudices case nor person person,' which concedes the Catholic argument about Caecilian.
141.7The Donatists padded the record with words, failed to prove anything against Caecilian, and could only call false the records showing that some of his judges were themselves traitors.
141.8The Donatists' own forefathers accused Caecilian before Constantine, so they cannot blame Catholics for appealing to emperors; and Caecilian was in fact cleared by bishops and by the emperor.
141.9The documents the Donatists produced (Optatus's book, their forefathers' petition, Constantine's letter to Verinus) all showed that Caecilian had been cleared.
141.10Constantine's letter about Ingentius, produced by the Donatists, actually confirms that Felix of Abthugni, Caecilian's ordainer, was found innocent.
141.11The dates in the record show that Caecilian was cleared by bishops, then Felix by the proconsul, and long afterward Caecilian again by the emperor, so the Donatist claim of a reversal is false.
141.12The charge of bribery is absurd, since the Donatists themselves read out four documents in Caecilian's favor.
141.13The council urges the Donatists to read the proceedings and return to unity, where their sacraments will become profitable to them; dated 14 June 412.
142.1Augustine reassures a group of clergy and laity recently reconciled from Donatism that, though he is absent, they are together with him in the one body of Christ, the Church spread through the world.
142.2Psalm 96, titled for the house built after the captivity, shows that the Church, God's house, is built throughout the whole earth.
142.3The Donatists admitted they had no case against the Church overseas; within the Church no one is defiled by others' sins, and the chaff must be borne on the threshing floor until the judgment.
142.4Augustine urges the clergy to fulfill their offices faithfully and to pray for those still estranged, that God may draw them to the sweetness of unity.
143.1Augustine answers Marcellinus's question how Pharaoh's magicians found water to turn into blood: perhaps sea water, or more likely water from the Israelites' region, which the plagues spared.
143.2Augustine says that his own books, unlike Scripture, may contain errors; he writes as he progresses and plans a work correcting whatever in them displeases him.
143.3Augustine rejects friends' claims that he never erred: Cicero's praise of a man who never said anything he wished to recall fits a fool, or else the inspired writers, not himself.
143.4Mindful of Horace's line that a spoken word cannot be recalled, Augustine delays publishing his books on Genesis and on the Trinity to reduce their faults.
143.5Augustine explains that a sentence in On Free Choice 3 about the soul ruling its body 'after sin' was worded so as not to decide among the four views of the soul's origin.
143.6Whatever the origin of souls, the soul now rules its body imperfectly 'after sin,' whether its own or Adam's; even infants are born in the flesh of sin and need baptism.
143.7Augustine holds the soul immortal and created but admits uncertainty about its origin, inviting correction by sure reason or clear Scripture, which can never truly conflict.
143.8Augustine illustrates with Ecclesiastes 12:7 how a traducianist could read 'dust to earth, spirit to God who gave it' as implying that souls, like flesh, descend from Adam.
143.9Ecclesiastes 12:7 fits traducianism or souls created beforehand and sent by God, but seems harder to square with souls created in each body or falling into bodies by choice.
143.10Each view of the soul's origin can answer the objection from 'God gave it'; even 'return' may mean returning to its Creator, so no view should be rashly rejected.
143.11Whoever wants to defend one view of the soul's origin must offer unambiguous Scripture or undeniable reasoning; otherwise Augustine's hesitation should not be blamed.
143.12On the virgin birth, Augustine answers that those who reject it because it happened only once should recall that secular histories record unique events they believe.
144.1Augustine tells the citizens of Cirta that the conversion of many of them from Donatism is God's work, not his, though he still longs to visit them.
144.2Even the pagan Polemo's reform by Xenocrates was God's gift, since continence comes only from God; so the Cirtans' conversion is to be credited to God, not to Augustine.
144.3Augustine offers the doubtful a dilemma: whether or not the Donatist case was tried overseas, separation from the worldwide Church is indefensible; he hopes to visit.
145.1Augustine writes to Anastasius by the hands of Lupicinus and Concordialis, apologizing for his long delay in replying.
145.2Augustine reflects that the world is more dangerous when it allures than when it troubles, and that the will is not truly free without God's grace.
145.3The law reveals human weakness and drives us to grace; the Spirit pours love into our hearts, and love fulfills the law, whereas those who trust their own strength find the law a chain.
145.4Abstaining from sin only for fear of punishment is not righteousness; the righteous fear sin itself out of love, the chaste fear that perfect love does not cast out.
145.5Righteousness should be served out of delight, as sin once was; mature love of righteousness persists even under torture, letting good works shine.
145.6Paul's 'Who will separate us from the love of Christ?' shows that we cling to Christ, who is our righteousness, by love and not by fear of punishment.
145.7Since love comes from the Holy Spirit, those who lack it must ask for it in prayer, and with it can glory even in tribulation.
145.8Augustine warns against those (the Pelagians, unnamed) who claim that the will can fulfill the law without grace, which would make the Lord's Prayer pointless.
146.1Augustine's brief, courteous reply to Pelagius, thanking him for his letter and asking his prayers that he may become what Pelagius thinks him to be.
147.1Augustine begins his long letter to Paulina on whether God can be seen with bodily eyes, saying that humility and prayer matter more than words in this inquiry.
147.2Augustine asks Paulina to listen with the inner self, which does not age, and to believe not his authority but the canonical Scriptures or the truth seen within.
147.3Augustine distinguishes seeing with the body (the sun) from seeing with the mind (one's own life and will), and notes that we believe God will be seen only because Scripture says so.
147.4What is not seen by body or mind can only be believed; the canonical Scriptures must be believed without doubt, while other testimony is weighed on its merits.
147.5Much ordinary knowledge (history, one's parentage) rests on others' testimony; errors there are harmless unless they touch the faith, but nothing should be rashly believed.
147.6Augustine clarifies that believing differs from mentally beholding what is present, as the virgin birth and resurrection are believed rather than seen.
147.7Things present to the senses of mind or body are seen; things absent are believed on testimony, while things once seen and remembered count as seen.
147.8Knowledge comprises things seen and things believed on adequate testimony; faith itself is seen by the mind, though its object is not.
147.9A believer in the resurrection sees the witness, the words, his own faith and will, and a mental image of the resurrection, but not the resurrection itself.
147.10Even the disciples did not see the resurrection happen but believed it on seeing the risen Christ; we believe the whole, which is present neither to our senses nor to our minds.
147.11Faith is visible to the believer's own mind but not its object, and one person's faith is hidden from another until the Lord reveals the thoughts of hearts.
147.12We may rightly say we 'know' God can be seen, as John says 'we know … we shall see him as he is,' though this knowledge rests on believing Scripture.
147.13Augustine sets out the apparent contradiction between 'No one has ever seen God' and texts saying that Jacob, Moses, Isaiah, and the angels saw God.
147.14Reading 'no one' as 'no one of men' explains how angels see God, but not how Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, and others are said to have seen him.
147.15Some claim from Job that even the devil saw God, but this conflicts with texts that only the pure in heart and holy will see him.
147.16'He who has seen me has seen the Father' affirms the unity of substance of Father and Son; as God, neither has been seen by men, though the Son was seen as man.
147.17Augustine introduces a long passage from Ambrose's commentary on Luke concerning the vision of God.
147.18Augustine quotes Ambrose: God is seen only when and in the form he wills, not in his nature; in the resurrection only the pure in heart will see him, by the mind and not the eyes.
147.19Augustine explains that God appears in forms chosen by his will while his nature stays hidden; Ambrose's wording guards against both Photinians and Arians and against making God mutable.
147.20The godly long to see God not in the forms he assumes but in his own substance, as Moses asked; this is promised for the next life, when we shall see him as he is.
147.21Seeing something differs from comprehending it wholly, whether by the mind (one's own will) or by the eyes (the outline of a ring).
147.22If angels see God as he is, we shall too when made equal to them; Ambrose's 'form is seen, power is declared' points to an ineffable vision of the mind.
147.23Ambrose's 'we lack the grace of seeing God' refers to this age, when God appeared only to a few; in the age to come all who inherit the kingdom will see him.
147.24Ambrose says that only the worthy, the pure in heart, will see God in the resurrection; all will rise, but the wicked to judgment.
147.25Only the pure in heart see God, so the devil's coming 'into God's sight' in Job means he was seen by God, not that he saw God.
147.26Augustine glosses each phrase of Ambrose's description of the future vision, contrasting it with God's appearances to Abraham, Moses, Jacob, and Adam.
147.27Only God can make the mind grasp an invisible reality seen by the pure heart; this vision belongs to the righteous in eternal life, which is to know the one true God.
147.28At the judgment the wicked will see Christ in his human form, but only the pure in heart will see him in the form of God, which is why that beatitude alone promises the sight of God.
147.29God is not heard by the ears either; the Son declares him as the inner Word, and God, who fills all things, is seen by the pure mind even when thought absent.
147.30Ambrose's 'not all the apostles' may hint at Peter's revelation, though Augustine doubts whether it was a vision or an act of faith.
147.31A mind may be caught up to see God's substance before death, as Paul was caught up to the third heaven, without contradicting 'no one can see my face and live.'
147.32Moses was told he could not see God's face, but Numbers 12 shows that he later saw the Lord's glory 'not in riddles,' perhaps seeing God as he is.
147.33Ambrose supports his remark with Christ's words to Philip and names those who see God: those who know the breadth, length, height, and depth of Christ's love.
147.34Augustine interprets the breadth, length, height, and depth of Ephesians 3 as love's works, perseverance, hope, and God's hidden judgments, and maps them on the cross.
147.35Ambrose's 'we know Christ according to the Spirit' refers to the knowledge of faith now; the vision of God as he is lies in the future, as his closing prayer shows.
147.36Augustine rejects the view that being 'filled with all the fullness of God' means becoming equal to God, and defers its explanation.
147.37Augustine summarizes: God is invisible by nature but appears in chosen forms; his children will see him as he is, as the angels do, with the eyes of the heart.
147.38Augustine asks Paulina to sort what she has seen, believed, and not known, noting that the mind, not the body, distinguishes bodily from mental sight and stores images of bodies.
147.39Augustine reminds Paulina that his and Ambrose's words carry far less weight than canonical Scripture, though he shares Ambrose's view.
147.40Paulina may hesitate over Augustine's interpretations, but she believes Scripture unconditionally; and she sees within herself her faith, doubt, and desire to learn.
147.41The inner eyes of the heart judge the bodily eyes and see what they cannot, and so are incomparably superior.
147.42The mind sees inner truths in a light no bodily eye reaches and without spatial extension, though bodily images crowd in, as Augustine admitted in his earlier letter.
147.43Even mental images of bodies occupy no space in the mind; much less do love, joy, and the other fruits of the Spirit, which are seen inwardly without place or sound.
147.44If love and the inner man are seen without place, much more is God, who dwells in light approachable only by a pure heart; the soul must be healed to become spiritual.
147.45Since our mind, the best part of us, is invisible to bodily eyes, God, whose peace surpasses all understanding, cannot be visible to them.
147.46Augustine lists the truths of faith about God's invisibility, the Trinity, and the resurrection body, from which the spiritually mature have learned that mental sight surpasses bodily sight.
147.47God's appearances in Scripture, bodily or in dreams and ecstasy, are forms chosen by his will, as our hidden will expresses itself in words without changing.
147.48God is called invisible so that he will not be thought a body; pure hearts will contemplate his substance, and Augustine follows Ambrose in denying this to bodily eyes even after the resurrection.
147.49Augustine is open to discussion of the resurrection body but rejects those who think God a body; the view that the risen body becomes spirit is more tolerable and still leaves bodily eyes unable to see God.
147.50The question of the spiritual body remains, but vision cannot belong only to bodies, since the Father sees the Son, God saw creation before the incarnation, and prophets are called seers.
147.51Augustine leaves open the nature of the spiritual body but holds that 'face to face' refers to the inner face of the heart, unveiled in Christ, not a bodily face.
147.52Augustine endorses Ambrose's view on its truth, not merely because Ambrose converted and baptized him, and quotes the passage again.
147.53Those who grasp Ambrose's words prepare themselves to be God's dwelling and filled with him, not to become God; Jerome too teaches that the Trinity is seen only by the mind's eyes.
147.54Augustine closes: the views of Ambrose and Jerome are not Scripture but should restrain hasty critics; the essential lesson is to prepare a pure heart to see God.
148.1Augustine asks Fortunatianus to seek pardon for him from a fellow bishop offended by the harshness of Letter 92, though he stands by its teaching that bodily eyes do not see God.
148.2If someone holds that the risen body will be able to see the incorporeal God, Augustine will learn from him; that view, being about the body rather than God, is tolerable and does not contradict his letter.
148.3Either the risen body remains essentially the same and cannot see God, or it is so transformed that its eyes are no longer 'the eyes of this body'; either way Augustine's statement holds.
148.4Augustine admits he was too harsh toward a fellow bishop, asks pardon, and requests Fortunatianus to reconcile them, since a meeting had been refused.
148.5Augustine hopes for reconciliation in love and for peaceful inquiry; if love itself cannot be seen by bodily eyes, still less can God, its source.
148.6Augustine cites Ambrose's commentary on Luke: Christ, the Spirit, and the Father are invisible in their divinity and seen only by spiritual eyes or in assumed forms.
148.7Jerome teaches that no creature, not even angels, sees God's nature, and that we shall see 'face to face' only in the sense of becoming like the angels.
148.8Augustine draws from Jerome that 'face to face' refers to the unveiled face of the heart, and that God's nature remains invisible to all bodily sight, heavenly or earthly.
148.9Jerome's statement that the Trinity is seen only by the eyes of the mind, with the promise of Matthew 5:8, excludes any bodily vision of God even in the future.
148.10Athanasius and Gregory also teach that the whole Trinity is invisible by nature and was seen only through assumed creatures, agreeing with Ambrose.
148.11God's invisibility, like his incorruptibility, is eternal; the children of God will see him, but as invisible things are seen, by the eyes of the heart.
148.12Ambrose taught that only the pure in heart will see God in the resurrection; the wicked do not truly wish to see him, since they will not cleanse their hearts by faith working through love.
148.13Scripture's references to God's limbs, like his wings, are to be understood spiritually, as all opponents of the Anthropomorphites hold.
148.14Augustine quotes Jerome on Psalm 94: God has no bodily members, but is all eye, all hand, all foot, in that he sees, works, and is present everywhere.
148.15The Fathers' writings, though not canonical Scripture, agree with what Augustine firmly believes: God is incorporeal, indivisible, and invisible by nature, appearing only in assumed forms.
148.16Augustine confesses he has found no satisfactory teaching on the nature of the spiritual body, though he inclines to think it will remain bodily in substance.
148.17Whatever the risen body's powers, the vision of God by the inner man is certain, since God will be all in all and fill the saints within.
148.18The inner man, who now sees love and peace, will see God; the resurrection of the body is certain, its qualities still open; Augustine again asks Fortunatianus to win him pardon.
149.1Augustine thanks Paulinus of Nola for news of the presbyter Quintus's safe arrival and approves a charitable plan Paulinus had mentioned.
149.2Augustine explains that his earlier reply and a copy of his letter on the resurrection of the body apparently never reached Paulinus, and sends them again.
149.3Augustine reports the Greek readings of Psalm 17:14 ('destroying' or 'from a few') and interprets 'from a few' as the separation of unbelieving Israel from the believing remnant, the Church.
149.4Augustine prefers the reading 'filled with sons' to 'filled with pork' in Psalm 17:14, taking 'sons' as works by which the wicked are known, as good works are the twin offspring of love.
149.5Augustine confirms from Greek manuscripts the genitive 'of sons' in Psalm 17:14 and links 'left their remains to their little ones' with Matthew 27:25.
149.6On Psalm 16:3 Augustine prefers 'in them' to 'among them' and takes God's 'wills' as the free gifts of grace, made wonderful in the saints.
149.7The 'multiplied weaknesses' of Psalm 16:4 are sins, as in Romans 5, multiplied under the law so that superabounding grace might heal and make sinners hasten to God.
149.8Old Testament sacrifices only signified cleansing; the sinners whose names God will not remember (Psalm 16:4) are those washed in Christ, who speaks in this psalm.
149.9Augustine reads Psalm 59:11 ('Do not kill them … scatter them') as foretelling the preservation and dispersion of the Jews, who keep the Scriptures as witnesses to the prophecies of Christ.
149.10Augustine explains Psalm 68:21 as hyperbole for overweening pride, and the 'tongue of your dogs' (68:23) as converted enemies who now bark in God's defense.
149.11On Ephesians 4:11 Augustine identifies the prophets as New Testament prophets like Agabus and takes 'pastors and teachers' as one office, since teaching belongs to pastors.
149.12Augustine turns to 1 Timothy 2:1, noting that the Greek uses different words (παρακαλῶ, δεήσεις) where some Latin copies repeat 'beseech.'
149.13Augustine discusses the Latin words for the kinds of prayer in 1 Timothy 2:1 and their Greek equivalents, rejecting 'adorations' as a rendering of προσευχάς.
149.14Augustine notes that 'intercessions' and 'requests' both render the Greek ἐντεύξεις, the same word used of Christ interceding for us.
149.15Though the words for prayer overlap in common use, Paul's listing suggests each has its own proper sense, which is hard to determine.
149.16Augustine maps the four kinds of prayer in 1 Timothy 2:1 onto the eucharistic liturgy: supplications before the consecration, prayers at the consecration and breaking, intercessions at the blessing of the people, thanksgiving after communion.
149.17Prayer must be offered for all, including persecuting rulers, because God wills all to be saved, but only through the one mediator, the man Christ Jesus, and sharing in his body and blood.
149.18God's inscrutable wisdom lets the wicked, whom he foreknew but did not make wicked, be born, and uses their evil for the good of the righteous.
149.19On Romans 11:25–27 Augustine takes the 'all Israel' that will be saved as the elect from Jews and Gentiles, the true Israel of God.
149.20The 'enemies' and 'beloved' of Romans 11:28 are different members of one people, or enemies later converted; the elect were chosen before the foundation of the world.
149.21The irrevocable gifts and calling of Romans 11:29 belong to the predestined, called according to God's purpose, foreknown, justified, and glorified (Romans 8).
149.22Those who fall away were not among the predestined, as shown by baptized infants who later apostatize; why some are predestined and others not is hidden but never unjust.
149.23Augustine reads 'Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle' (Colossians 2:21) as Paul's ironic quotation of false teachers, not his own command.
149.24In context, Paul warns the Colossians against false 'wisdom' from pagan philosophy and Jewish observances, pointing them to Christ, in whom all treasures of wisdom are hidden.
149.25Augustine traces Colossians 2:5–10: Paul warns against philosophy and the 'elements of the world,' since Christ, in whom the Godhead dwells bodily, is head of every principality and power.
149.26Colossians 2:11–15 warns against the 'shadows' of Judaism: in baptism believers share Christ's circumcision and resurrection, and Christ triumphed over the evil powers.
149.27Augustine explains Colossians 2:16–18: no one should judge Christians over food or festivals, mere shadows, nor impose a false humility and worship of angels; 'wishing in humility' means affecting humility.
149.28Paul's false teacher presses unseen or secretly seen rites, puffed up by false humility, and fails to hold to Christ the head; those who died with Christ should not decree about the world's elements.
149.29Augustine reads 'Do not touch, taste, handle' as the false teachers' words, whose abstentions lead to corruption, and takes up Paulinus's question why Paul calls such things a show of wisdom.
149.30The 'wisdom' Paul concedes to such observances is the wisdom of this world, philosophical reasoning about the elements, which humbles the heart superstitiously and afflicts the body to no purpose.
149.31Christ's risen body could be unrecognized because God changed its features, just as at the Transfiguration he changed its brightness and as age changes a face.
149.32'Do not touch me' asks for the spiritual touch of faith; Christ's being known in the breaking of bread is a sacrament gathering us to know him.
149.33The sword piercing Mary's soul is the grief of the passion, when the persecutors' tongues were swords; similarly the 'iron' that passed through Joseph's soul was hard tribulation.
149.34Augustine closes, noting that Scripture's obscurities allow varied interpretations consistent with sound faith, and sends greetings, including to a young Paulinus recently arrived after a storm.
150.1Augustine congratulates Proba and Juliana on the consecration of Demetrias, of the Anician family, to virginity, a greater glory than the consulships of her house.
151.1Augustine answers Caecilianus's complaint about his silence, treating it as a mark of friendship.
151.2Augustine explains he had not written because Caecilianus had forwarded Pope Innocent's letter without one of his own; he had written only to commend a friend.
151.3Augustine explains that after the treacherous execution (of Marcellinus and his brother) he left Carthage secretly, unable to bear having to entreat the man responsible for the lives of others sheltering in the church.
151.4Augustine does not believe that Caecilianus prompted the executions, but asks him to pardon those who suspect it, given his known grievance against one brother and his close friendship with Marinus.
151.5The bishops were deceived by promises while a bishop went to the emperor; on the eve of the execution Caecilianus swore at the altar that he had urged Marinus to spare the brothers.
151.6Augustine recounts the shock of the sudden execution on the eve of Cyprian's feast, in a nearby place chosen to forestall the Church's intervention, which made many suspect Caecilianus.
151.7Augustine urges Caecilianus to break with Marinus, whose crime wounded his own soul more than his victims, for death harms no one whose life was good.
151.8Augustine contrasts the worldly elder brother (Apringius) with the devout Marcellinus, whose virtues he praises, and who would have entered religious life had he not been married.
151.9In prison Marcellinus welcomed suffering as punishment for sins in this life, and swore to Augustine that he had never known any woman but his wife.
151.10Marcellinus lost nothing by death; Marinus, who defied the Church and Christ, harmed only himself, and Caecilianus's innocence and good name remain intact.
151.11The emperor had ordered the brothers released without even the stigma of a pardon, so Marinus acted from gratuitous cruelty; Caecilianus should detest his deed out of true love for him.
151.12Augustine asks Caecilianus to use his friendship to bring Marinus to repentance and to tell him what he did on the day of the execution.
151.13Augustine explains that he stays away from Carthage because of its toil, his ill health and age, and his resolve to devote his free time to writing for the Church.
151.14Augustine rebukes Caecilianus for remaining a catechumen instead of being baptized; the letter breaks off.
152.1Macedonius, vicar of Africa, writes to Augustine asking whether episcopal intercession for criminals is consistent with religion, since it seems to approve their crimes, especially when they keep their gains.
152.2Macedonius asks Augustine to resolve his doubt, adding that he gladly grants pardons at good men's request, and asks for some of Augustine's writings.
153.1Augustine answers Macedonius, imperial vicar of Africa, who asked why bishops intercede for condemned criminals when this seems to make them sharers in the guilt.
153.2Augustine takes up Macedonius's own admission that sins seem more pardonable when the guilty promise amendment, as the ground of episcopal intercession.
153.3Bishops intercede not because they approve crimes but because they hate the vice and love the human being, who can amend only in this life.
153.4God himself sends sun and rain on the wicked and waits patiently for their repentance, so intercession comes from religion.
153.5Loving and praying for the impious, as God commands, does not make one a partner in their impiety; the aim is their repentance.
153.6Those whom bishops rescue from the sentence are still barred from the altar to do penance, and if God is patient even with the impenitent, bishops should be merciful to those who promise amendment.
153.7Even those who relapse after the church's once-only public penance are not beyond God's patience, and their repentance still profits them for the life to come.
153.8Since all are sinners, even judges, who rightly avenge crimes as ministers of the law, should remember their own need of mercy and may act mercifully.
153.9Christ's word to the accusers of the adulteress and Joseph's resolve not to expose Mary show that sparing the guilty is not approval of the crime.
153.10Intercession differs from defense; Macedonius himself once interceded with the bishop of Carthage for a cleric, and a bishop has stronger reason to intercede against the sword.
153.11Christ interceded for the adulteress by frightening her accusers; Christians should yield to the saying to which even his enemies yielded, and Macedonius should be gentle.
153.12God alone is good by nature; human beings are good by sharing in his goodness through his Spirit, and are called good when their good deeds prevail.
153.13The Lord's Prayer, prayed by the baptized, shows that God's adopted sons are good by grace yet still sinners needing daily forgiveness.
153.14Christ called his disciples evil yet children of God; as Seneca says, to hate the wicked is to hate everyone, so the wicked must be loved in order to be healed.
153.15Sins after baptism are expiated by works of mercy; Christ, sinless, did not condemn the adulteress yet bade her sin no more, so intercession is not complicity.
153.16The power of rulers, judges, and executioners has its proper use in restraining the wicked, and episcopal intercession presupposes rather than opposes it.
153.17There is a merciful punishment and a cruel leniency; killing differs in guilt by intention, and one is not guilty of every death one occasions.
153.18Bad consequences that sometimes follow intercession are not imputable to the intercessors, who aim at commending gentleness and saving souls.
153.19Civil severity and episcopal intercession are both useful; Paul's teaching in Romans 13 shows the ruler's sword is from God, and both must act from love.
153.20True repentance requires restoring stolen property when possible; bishops intercede for debtors only to prevent needless cruelty, not to block restitution.
153.21A bishop who shields someone from making restitution shares his crime; bishops rebuke such people and may exclude them from communion.
153.22Bishop and judge may differ about the facts of a case, but both agree that stolen property must be restored; Augustine intercedes only for pardon combined with restitution.
153.23Not every payment taken from the unwilling is unjust, but judges and witnesses must never sell their verdicts or testimony, even when just.
153.24Customary fees taken by court officials may be given to the poor, but what was taken by theft or extortion must be restored, as Zacchaeus did.
153.25An advocate who wins unjust cases has more reason to restore his fees than a minor official; usury too is wrong possession, though no court will order its return.
153.26Only the just truly possess what they have; civil law restrains bad possessors until the godly reach the eternal city, and Augustine closes his letter to Macedonius.
154.1Macedonius, vicar of Africa, writes to Augustine that he has granted the petition Augustine made on behalf of certain people, praising his modest way of interceding.
154.2Macedonius praises the first books of Augustine's City of God for refuting the pagan claim that Christianity brought calamity, drawing on the recent disaster.
154.3Macedonius closes, promising to write again from Italy.
155.1Augustine thanks Macedonius and rejoices that he longs for the heavenly commonwealth ruled by Christ, the source of true friendship.
155.2The philosophers lacked true piety because they sought to make themselves happy by their own virtue, and so absurdly allowed the wise man to kill himself to escape suffering.
155.3Cicero's Tusculans show the contradiction of philosophers who call the wise man always happy yet advise him to kill himself under extreme suffering; the remedy is to pray to God.
155.4Christians endure this life in the hope of eternal happiness, as Christ's passion and resurrection teach; even Cicero called this life a death.
155.5True wisdom is the worship of the true God, and whatever wisdom Augustine has is God's gift, not his own merit.
155.6Virtue and happiness come only from God; trusting in oneself, as the false philosophers did, is vanity.
155.7Psalm 144 shows that a city's happiness, like a man's, comes from having the Lord as its God, not from earthly prosperity.
155.8The psalm rejects both earthly prosperity and self-reliant virtue as the source of happiness, placing it in having the Lord as God.
155.9Both virtue and happiness must be asked of God, for the individual and for the city alike, since a city is only a harmonious multitude of people.
155.10Macedonius's civic virtues are not true virtues if they aim only at people's earthly security and not at their worship of the true God.
155.11Augustine explains that friendship requires him to admonish Macedonius freely, though he speaks with the modesty Macedonius praised.
155.12Civic virtues become true when referred to the worship of God, and in eternal life the four virtues will be one: clinging to God.
155.13Virtue in this life is loving what ought to be loved, above all God, to whom we go not by walking but by loving.
155.14Love of neighbor extends to all human beings by the fellowship of nature, as even Terence's famous line, applauded in the theaters, shows.
155.15There are only two great commandments because one loves oneself rightly only by loving God; love of neighbor means leading others to worship God.
155.16The virtues are given by God through Christ the mediator; the saints are called happy amid torments only in hope of their eternal goal.
155.17Augustine exhorts Macedonius to piety, noting that his edict calling the Donatists back to unity already shows concern for the heavenly commonwealth.
156.1Hilary, a layman of Syracuse, asks Augustine about Pelagian teachings circulating there: sinlessness, unbaptized infants, riches, oaths, and the spotless church.
157.1Augustine begins his reply to Hilary of Syracuse on the questions raised by Pelagian teaching.
157.2No one in this life is without sin, as 1 John, the Lord's Prayer, and Daniel's confession show.
157.3Those who avoid grave crimes and cleanse daily sins by mercy and prayer will die free of sin, but sinlessness cannot be an excuse for license.
157.4The claim that free will suffices to keep God's commandments without grace and the Holy Spirit must be anathematized.
157.5Free will avails for good only with God's help, as the petition "Lead us not into temptation" and 1 Cor 10:13 show.
157.6The law shows what grace must give; those who rely on the law without grace repeat the error Paul ascribes to the Jews and seek to kill Christ's grace.
157.7Believers hunger for righteousness and seek Christ the physician; those who deny the need of grace are like the delirious who beat their doctor.
157.8The will is truly free only when healed by grace; the psalmist prays for God to direct his steps rather than boasting of free choice.
157.9God both commands and gives continence, as the Book of Wisdom says; the law commands so that we may seek grace.
157.10Grace does not abolish free will but helps it; whatever good one has is received from God, so one should glory in the Lord and pray humbly.
157.11Against the claim that unbaptized infants cannot perish, Augustine cites Romans 5 on sin entering through Adam, and defends infant baptism as freeing them from inherited condemnation.
157.12Paul's contrast between condemnation from one offense and justification from many shows that original sin is inherited by generation, not merely imitated.
157.13Paul's "all" in Romans 5 means that all who are condemned are so through Adam and all who are justified are so through Christ, not that all are saved.
157.14The righteous of the Old Testament were saved by the same faith in Christ's incarnation as Christians; the sacraments changed but the faith did not.
157.15The law, whether natural, given in paradise, or Mosaic, could not give life but increased transgression; Christ's grace saves infants and adults alike, even the gravely fallen.
157.16Those who groan to God in the words of the psalms receive superabounding grace; Paul in Romans 7 credits deliverance to grace, not free choice.
157.17Paul's wording in Rom 5:21 shows that grace through Christ dissolves both inherited sin and the many sins added by human conduct.
157.18Infants share Adam's sin and need baptism; before the law sin existed but was not imputed, since there was no law to expose it.
157.19Death reigned even over those who had not personally sinned because of Adam's transgression; Augustine discusses two interpretations and a textual variant in Rom 5:14.
157.20Adam is a type of Christ by contrast, but the gift exceeds the offense: Christ's life is eternal and his redemption covers many sins.
157.21If sin passed only by imitation, Paul would have named the devil, and Abel as the model of righteousness; instead he contrasts Adam and Christ.
157.22Augustine warns Hilary about Caelestius, condemned at Carthage, who admitted infants need redemption, and hopes the Pelagians may be healed within the church.
157.23Against the claim that the rich cannot be saved, Augustine cites the wealthy patriarchs and the parable of Lazarus, carried to rich Abraham's bosom.
157.24The Pelagians reply that the patriarchs were not yet commanded to sell everything, as the rich young man was under the New Testament.
157.25Christ told the rich young man that keeping the commandments leads to life and that selling everything is the counsel of perfection, so the rich who keep the commandments can be saved.
157.26Paul's instruction to the rich in 1 Timothy 6 shows that riches themselves do not condemn, but pride and trust in wealth.
157.27Christ's saying about the camel and the needle must be read with his assurance that what is impossible for men is easy for God.
157.28The Pelagians claim that the rich enter the kingdom only by selling everything, not by remaining rich and doing good.
157.29Whether the rich keep their wealth or sell it, salvation is God's work, not human power, and those who sell everything must also credit grace.
157.30Paul's household instructions presuppose that Christians keep houses and property, so he cannot have required the rich to sell everything.
157.31Christ's command to leave all, including a wife, applies when one must choose between spouse and Christ; otherwise divorce is forbidden except for sexual immorality, and Paul's counsel on mixed marriages applies.
157.32The command to leave house and lands applies when persecution forces a choice between possessions and Christ; then the rich must give them up.
157.33Even weaker Christians who keep their wealth must, when it comes to the choice, give it up rather than Christ, having counted the cost when they came to faith.
157.34Every Christian renounces his possessions either by giving them away or by being ready to lose them for Christ; those who renounce the world only in words fail when tested.
157.35True Christian rich people use their wealth for hospitality and charity and are ready to lose wealth, family, and life for Christ.
157.36Many rich Christians became martyrs, and those who keep their wealth but show mercy to Christ in the needy will stand at his right hand.
157.37The Pelagian ascetics should urge higher things without condemning lesser ones, and should welcome the godly rich who often support them.
157.38Those who live on the gifts of the rich should not condemn them, just as monks who work with their hands do not condemn those who live on gifts.
157.39Augustine has himself embraced voluntary poverty and urges it on others, but without condemning Christians who live chastely in marriage and use their wealth well.
157.40Augustine briefly answers that the church on earth contains good and bad, and advises avoiding oaths, while noting that Paul himself swore.
157.41Augustine closes, asking Hilary to send word of what the brothers at Syracuse argue against the Pelagians.
158.1Evodius, bishop of Uzalis, tells Augustine about his young secretary, a presbyter's son, whom he had come to love as a friend.
158.2The young man died singing psalms and signing himself with the cross, and Evodius held three days of hymns and offered the Eucharist on the third day.
158.3A widow dreamed of a palace being prepared in heaven for the young man and his body being taken up, with roses springing from his tomb.
158.4Evodius asks what the soul is like after leaving the body, since even in the body it struggles and conquers through Christ.
158.5Evodius asks whether the soul after death keeps some body of air or ether, since without bodies souls could not be in distinct places like the rich man and Lazarus.
158.6Evodius suggests that souls may keep a subtle body, citing angels, Samuel, Moses at the Transfiguration, and an apocryphal Moses writing, and that the soul may take bodily heat with it.
158.7Evodius hopes the freed soul is more alert and recognizes friends, but fears it may be in a kind of dreamless sleep.
158.8Evodius asks whether departed souls have senses, citing demons, reported apparitions of the dead, and nocturnal prayers heard in basilicas.
158.9Evodius reports having seen departed monks in dreams whose words came true, and asks whether they were the dead themselves or another spirit.
158.10Dreams foretold the young man's death and then his father's, who died seven days after him; Evodius asks Augustine to explain such things.
158.11Evodius argues that only God is wholly bodiless, and that the soul freed from the body is more alert, as a dream of the departed Servilius suggested.
158.12Evodius also asks in how many senses "wisdom" is used in Scripture and how they relate to the eternal Wisdom of God.
159.1Augustine replies to Evodius (Ep. 158), commending the bearer Barbarus, and says briefly that the soul does not leave the body with another body.
159.2Augustine cannot explain how visions occur, since he cannot even explain ordinary mental images; he refers Evodius to Book 12 of The Literal Meaning of Genesis.
159.3Augustine tells how the physician Gennadius, once doubting life after death, dreamed of a youth leading him to hear the hymns of the saints.
159.4In a second dream the youth showed Gennadius that he was seeing without his bodily eyes, teaching him that life and perception continue after death.
159.5Since no one can explain ordinary dream images, no one should pronounce confidently on rare visions; Augustine wishes he knew how to tell true visions from false.
160.1Evodius argues to Augustine that reason is eternal and coeternal with God, since it shows that God must exist.
160.2Evodius asks whether reason or God is prior, concluding that reason is either God or God's, and coeternal with him.
160.3Evodius speculates that God and reason are mutually dependent and coeternal, like Father and Son, or like a seed and the fruitful principle within it.
160.4Evodius argues that the Father and the Son are each known only through the other, and that the Father was never without his Word (reason), and adds a mention of love.
161.1Evodius questions Augustine's saying that the virgin birth would not be wonderful if a reason could be given nor unique if an example could be found, since no conception can be explained.
161.2Evodius cites animals said to conceive without male seed, and the spider spinning its web, as possible examples that would make the virgin birth not unique.
161.3Evodius asks how to answer the objection that, if the virgin birth is beyond reason, so might Christ's glorified body be able to see God; he affirms his own faith in both doctrines.
162.1Augustine replies to Evodius that difficult questions cannot be answered hastily, since many readers will see his writings, and he cannot drop his current work for every new question.
162.2Augustine refers Evodius to his books on the Trinity, Genesis, the greatness of the soul, free will, and true religion, and corrects his notion that God "must" exist by reason: God simply is.
162.3As the soul in dreams sees without bodily eyes and without a body, so at death it departs from the body without taking any body with it.
162.4Many people fail to see that mental images of bodies are not bodies, and even those who see it cannot explain how such images exist in the mind.
162.5The workings of mental images are mysterious, especially in prophecy, where an angel "spoke in" the prophet, and in angelic appearances in dreams.
162.6Augustine explains that things are wonderful either because their reason is hidden, as with the virgin birth, or because they are unusual, as when Christ marveled at the centurion's faith.
162.7The worm and the spider are not true examples, for Christ alone was born of a virgin; and the two kinds of wonder are like the two senses of "temptation" in Scripture.
162.8That God cannot be seen with bodily eyes, even Christ's, is not a hidden mystery but plain reason, since God is not a body.
162.9Whatever is hidden about bodies, it is plain that bodies occupy space, so God, who is whole everywhere, cannot be seen with bodily eyes; Augustine asks for a copy of Evodius's lost letter.
163.1Evodius asks Augustine about the origin of Christ's human soul and about the spirits in prison to whom Christ preached according to 1 Peter 3.
164.1Augustine replies to Evodius that he too is perplexed by 1 Peter 3 on Christ preaching to the spirits in prison, and sets out his difficulties.
164.2Augustine asks why, if Christ preached in the underworld, Peter mentions only those who disbelieved in Noah's time and not the countless others who died in ignorance of God.
164.3Christ certainly descended into the underworld, as Psalm 16 and Acts show, and loosed its pains either so they could not hold him or to free others.
164.4Augustine would gladly believe that admired pagan poets and philosophers were freed from hell, but human feeling is not the measure of God's justice.
164.5There is no clear authority that Christ emptied hell; the loosing of its pains may refer to Christ himself or to some, not all, of those held there.
164.6Almost the whole church holds that Christ freed Adam from the underworld, a view supported by Wisdom 10; some add the patriarchs and prophets.
164.7Abraham's bosom, where Lazarus rested, was not in torment nor part of the underworld, since a great gulf separated them, so it is unclear what Christ's descent did for the righteous there.
164.8Christ was in the underworld in his human soul and freed some from its pains, while by his divinity he was always in paradise with the righteous.
164.9Augustine questions the view that the saints raised at Christ's death already received the final resurrection, citing Christ as firstborn from the dead, Peter on David's tomb, and Hebrews 11.
164.10Peter's letter goes on to speak of baptism, Christ's exaltation, and the gospel being preached "to the dead," which deepens the difficulty.
164.11Augustine cannot see how the dead in the underworld could be "judged in the flesh," nor why Peter singles out Noah's generation.
164.12The view that Christ emptied hell of those who had not heard the gospel fails, since many have died since his resurrection without hearing it.
164.13If people could believe in the underworld after death, preaching the gospel in this life would be pointless or even harmful, which is absurd.
164.14Augustine holds to the creed that Christ died, was buried, descended, freed whom he willed, and rose, while leaving the passage in 1 Peter open.
164.15Augustine proposes that Peter's words refer not to the underworld but to Noah's time as a type of the present, with the ark as the church and the flood as baptism.
164.16The "spirits in prison" may be souls in the darkness of ignorance in Noah's day, like unbelievers today; the flood signifies both baptism and judgment.
164.17Before the incarnation Christ came "in the spirit" through visions, rebuking Cain and Adam and admonishing others, always together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
164.18The word order of 1 Peter 3:18–20 shows that Christ, by the same Spirit in which he rose, had earlier come to preach to Noah's generation.
164.19Christ was not put to death in his soul, since he was sinless; whatever the origin of souls, his soul and flesh were free from sin.
164.20Augustine rejects only the view that souls are imprisoned in bodies for previous sins; Christ's soul never died, so "made alive in the spirit" refers to his flesh raised by the Spirit.
164.21"The dead" to whom the gospel was preached can be understood as the spiritually dead in this life, who on believing are judged in the flesh by trials but live in the spirit.
164.22Augustine invites a better interpretation, notes he has answered Evodius's other questions by the deacon Asellus, and asks again for a copy of a lost letter.
165.1Jerome writes to Marcellinus and Anapsychia, listing the opinions on the origin of the soul, referring them to his works against Rufinus and to Augustine.
165.2Jerome explains that the sack of Rome and barbarian raids in the East have interrupted his Commentary on Ezekiel, of which he has sent two books to Fabiola.
165.3Jerome commends Oceanus as able to instruct them and closes with a blessing.
166.1Augustine writes to Jerome to consult him, as an old man still eager to learn, regretting the distance between them.
166.2Augustine introduces Orosius, a young Spanish presbyter fighting heresies in Spain, whom he has sent on to Jerome as the bearer of this letter.
166.3Augustine states what he firmly holds: the soul is immortal in its own way but can die spiritually, and it is not a part of God, since it is changeable.
166.4Augustine holds that the soul is incorporeal, being present whole in every part of the body, as shown by its perceiving a touch at any point.
166.5Augustine holds that the soul fell by its own will and can be freed only by God's grace through Christ the mediator, without whom it will be punished.
166.6Augustine asks Jerome where an infant's soul contracts the guilt that makes baptism necessary, noting that Jerome himself affirmed original sin against Jovinian and in his Commentary on Jonah.
166.7In On Free Will Augustine left open four views on the soul's origin, leaving out the Manichaean view that it is part of God; now he asks Jerome which of the four is true, consistent with infants' need of Christ.
166.8Jerome holds that God creates each soul at birth, citing John 5:17, and referred Marcellinus to Augustine; Augustine wishes to share this view but cannot yet affirm it.
166.9Augustine asks Jerome to teach him what to teach, recalling that Christ is the one Teacher who teaches through others, and that humility in learning is a test.
166.10If each soul is newly created, Augustine cannot see how unbaptized infants can justly be condemned, and he asks Jerome how this view can be defended.
166.11Opponents answer the appeal to John 5:17 by saying God's ongoing work is governance, not new creation, since Genesis says he finished creating.
166.12Augustine answers that the creation of new souls does not contradict God's rest, since God is multiplying a kind he already made on the sixth day, man in his image.
166.13God may create souls for infants who die soon either to expose or chastise their parents' sins, or as part of the ordered "song" of time whose measures he determines.
166.14The objection that nothing that begins in time can be immortal is refuted by the immortality of Christ's risen flesh.
166.15The objection that God would not give souls to children conceived in adultery does not trouble Augustine; Jerome's comparison of stolen seed answers it, since God brings good out of human sin.
166.16Augustine is at a loss to explain the sufferings of infants in this life, and their condemnation if unbaptized, if their souls are newly created and sinless.
166.17The inborn differences of intelligence also raise difficulties for the view that each soul is newly created.
166.18Augustine quotes his own earlier answer in On Free Will: infants' sufferings may correct their parents, and God may compensate the infants, as with the Holy Innocents honored as martyrs.
166.19In On Free Will Augustine's aim allowed him to leave the four opinions open, but now, seeking the true one, he finds his earlier defense inadequate.
166.20Compensation may apply to infants who suffer for Christ or are baptized, but not to unbaptized infants who die after suffering and are condemned.
166.21Since all die in Adam and are made alive only in Christ, unbaptized infants are condemned, as the church's practice and Jerome himself affirm; but Augustine cannot see why, if their souls are sinless.
166.22Augustine considers a hypothesis that only the infant's flesh is sinful, so that an unbaptized infant's soul would be saved but its body would not rise in Christ.
166.23Augustine rejects the hypothesis, since Scripture knows only the resurrection of life and of judgment, and the church baptizes infants for their souls, as Cyprian taught.
166.24Whatever one thinks of Cyprian on other points, no one may oppose the apostolic faith in original sin or the church's custom of infant baptism, which is not for the body.
166.25Augustine will adopt the creation of new souls only if it can be reconciled with the condemnation of unbaptized infants.
166.26Texts like Zech 12:1, Ps 33:15, and Eccl 12:7 do not settle the question in favor of new souls; Augustine wishes the view to be true and asks Jerome for an unanswerable defense.
166.27The same difficulty faces the view that pre-existing souls are sent into bodies; Augustine rejects the Origenist view of souls imprisoned for earlier sins and of endless cycles.
166.28Augustine hopes Jerome can resolve the question but will accept ignorance with patience, holding only that the true view cannot contradict the faith that infants are saved only through Christ's grace in the sacraments.
167.1Augustine asks Jerome to explain James 2:10, “whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles in one point has become guilty of all.”
167.2Augustine explains, with the parable of a man in a well, why the question about James matters more for life than the question of the soul's origin.
167.3Augustine sets out the context of James 2:1–11 and the apparent consequence that partiality to the rich makes one guilty of every crime.
167.4Augustine distinguishes the philosophers' doctrine that the virtues are inseparable from the Stoic doctrine that all sins are equal, which Jerome refuted against Jovinian.
167.5The philosophers' argument for the inseparability of the four cardinal virtues.
167.6Each virtue has two opposing vices: one plainly contrary, one deceptively similar.
167.7Catiline's endurance was not courage but hardness, because it lacked the other virtues.
167.8Because each virtue faces two vices, the vices are more numerous and do not hang together as the virtues do.
167.9Vices replace one another, but a virtue entering drives out all vices.
167.10Faithful spouses have the virtue of chastity yet are not without sin, so one virtue does not bring all; even the apostles say “we all stumble in many things.”
167.11Love, which is piety and the fullness of the law, is the true virtue and admits of more and less.
167.12Augustine rejects the Stoic image of the sage emerging suddenly from water into air.
167.13Progress in virtue is like gradually coming out of a cave into light: the righteous live by faith, yet no one here lives without sin.
167.14Even if the virtues are inseparable, sins are not equal; virtue, as love, exists in degrees in different acts and persons.
167.15Virtue is love of what ought to be loved; it is never full in this life, so all must pray “forgive us our debts,” and the commandments show us our need of grace.
167.16One becomes “guilty of all” because every sin offends against love, on which the whole law hangs.
167.17Guilt is greater or less according to how far one acts against love, so sins are not equal even though each makes one guilty of all.
167.18Partiality is a grave sin if it concerns church offices; in ordinary seating it is sin when one inwardly judges the rich better.
167.19The law of liberty is the law of love; James offers works of mercy as the daily remedy for daily sins.
167.20God unites mercy and judgment; those who forgive and give find mercy for their daily sins.
167.21Augustine asks Jerome to correct him and to share any better explanation of James 2:10.
168.1Timasius and James, former followers of Pelagius, thank Augustine for his reply to Pelagius's book (On Nature and Grace).
169.1Augustine tells Evodius of his progress on the City of God (books 1–5), the Psalms, and the unfinished On the Trinity, and asks not to be diverted.
169.2Augustine explains that 1 Cor 14:38 (“if anyone is ignorant, he will be ignored”) concerns church order, not inability to understand the Trinity.
169.3Salvation comes through the foolishness of preaching, not through ability to understand God's nature.
169.4Many simple believers who glory in the cross reach eternal life, while some subtle thinkers who mock the gospel go astray.
169.5A statement of the faith in one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, inseparable in being and work, yet shown separately at Christ's baptism.
169.6Memory, understanding, and will illustrate, imperfectly, how the Trinity works inseparably even when one Person is shown.
169.7The voice and the dove were passing signs, but the man assumed by the Word was united to him in one person, the Word remaining unchanged.
169.8By analogy with a philosopher who is beaten in body, it is rightly said that God was crucified, though he suffered in the flesh.
169.9The voice, dove, tongues of fire, and the signs at Sinai were passing signs; God's nature did not change.
169.10Augustine argues against Evodius that, like the voice from heaven, the dove could appear without any animal soul, as a bodily form produced by God.
169.11Whether such signs were bodily or spiritual visions, and whether angels mediated them, need not be decided, so long as God's nature is held to be unchangeable.
169.12Augustine concludes his answers to Evodius's two questions, on the Trinity and on the dove.
169.13Augustine lists his recent works: letters to Jerome on the soul and on James, a book for Orosius against the Priscillianists and Origenists, and a book against Pelagius.
170.1Augustine and Alypius write to Maximus, a convert from Arianism, rejoicing in his conversion but grieved that his household has not followed.
170.2The worship (latreia) owed to God alone is owed to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, whose temple we are.
170.3The one Lord God whom alone we serve is the Trinity itself, the Persons distinct but of one nature.
170.4The Son is begotten from the Father's substance, coeternal like brightness from flame; the Spirit proceeds and is not made.
170.5Each Person of the Trinity is as great as all three together; they are three yet one God.
170.6Father and Son are relative names, not names of nature, so the Arian argument that the Son is of a different nature fails.
170.7Being from the Father concerns origin, not nature, as Abel was from Adam yet both were men.
170.8God begot the Son without passion and as his equal from eternity; the Son's equality is by nature, not robbery.
170.9Christ is less than the Father in the form of a servant and equal to him in the form of God.
170.10Augustine urges Maximus to bring his household with him into the Catholic Church.
171.1Augustine and Alypius ask Peregrinus to report on Maximus's response and explain the format of their long letter.
172.1Jerome tells Augustine he cannot yet answer his two books (Epp. 166–167) because of troubled times, assures him of his love, and urges joint action against Pelagianism.
172.2Jerome sends greetings from Eustochium and Paula and explains that he cannot supply his edition of the Septuagint for lack of Latin copyists.
173.1Augustine writes to Donatus, a Donatist presbyter forcibly brought in, telling him his injuries were self-inflicted and that he is being drawn to salvation.
173.2As men are compelled to become bishops, so those in error may be compelled toward good, though salvation requires a good will.
173.3Examples from Israel, Paul's conversion, fatherly discipline, and the shepherds of Ezekiel justify restraining a bad will.
173.4Donatus's attempt to drown himself was free but destructive; rescuing him against his will was an act of love, and suicide is never permitted.
173.51 Cor 13:3 does not commend suicide but the choice to suffer rather than do evil, as the three young men in Daniel did.
173.6Outside the church's unity and love, even martyrdom by fire profits nothing.
173.7Augustine turns the Donatist bishops' maxim at the Conference of Carthage (411), “neither case nor person prejudices another,” against Donatus.
173.8The Donatists' own treatment of the Maximianists under Primian shows that the case of Caecilian cannot condemn the Catholic Church.
173.9Augustine urges Donatus to read the record of the conference and choose unity.
173.10Augustine reads “compel them to come in” (Luke 14:23) as warrant for the church, now strong, to compel the Donatists to unity.
174.1Augustine sends Aurelius of Carthage the finished books On the Trinity, explaining that part of the work had been taken and circulated before completion.
175.1The Council of Carthage (416) reports to Pope Innocent that it has renewed the condemnation of Pelagius and Caelestius.
175.2The council asks for the apostolic see's authority against those who reduce grace to created nature and the law.
175.3Scripture testifies to grace that frees the will, which the Pelagians in effect deny by making nature sufficient.
175.4Pelagianism makes prayer for help against temptation and for perseverance in faith meaningless.
175.5Pelagianism also empties the bishops' blessings and Paul's prayers for strength of meaning.
175.6The council anathematizes those who deny the necessity of grace and of infant baptism for salvation.
176.1The Council of Milevis (416) appeals to Pope Innocent to act for the endangered members of Christ.
176.2The council describes the Pelagian denial that prayer and grace are needed against sin and that unbaptized infants are lost.
176.3The two chief errors are that God's help need not be asked and that the sacrament does not benefit infants.
176.4Pelagius and Caelestius are named; Pelagius is said to be deceiving people in Jerusalem, opposed by Jerome.
176.5The Numidian council hopes the pope's authority will correct the Pelagians, following Carthage's letter.
177.1Five African bishops write to Pope Innocent, following the councils of Carthage and Milevis, against those who trust in their own strength rather than in grace.
177.2The bishops explain that the Eastern synod acquitted Pelagius because it understood “grace” in the Catholic sense, not as mere created nature.
177.3The bishops ask the pope to summon or write to Pelagius to establish what he means by grace.
177.4Prayer not to be led into temptation shows that grace is more than nature, free choice, forgiveness, or law: it is help to do the commandment.
177.5Every command (understanding, wisdom, self-control, avoiding evil, doing good) is matched by a prayer for the same thing, showing that law commands and grace helps.
177.6The bishops send Pelagius's book On Nature, with Augustine's reply On Nature and Grace, given by Timasius and James.
177.7The grace proper to Christians is not created nature but the hidden help of the Spirit by which the predestined are called, justified, and glorified.
177.8Scripture uses “grace” for the grace that justifies by faith in Christ, not for the grace of creation.
177.9If grace is only the capacity of nature, the cross is emptied and Christ died in vain.
177.10Nature, the law, and the promise all existed before Christ; if they sufficed, Christ died in vain.
177.11Righteousness comes only from faith in Christ the one mediator, who remade fallen human nature.
177.12The righteous of old were saved by the same faith in Christ, hidden then and revealed now, as shown by Abraham and Melchizedek.
177.13The law was given to reveal and increase sin so that people would seek the grace of God's promises.
177.14Grace was hidden under the law like the dew in Gideon's fleece and is now manifest; those who rely on their own righteousness repeat Israel's error.
177.15The bishops ask that Pelagius be made to condemn his book, and forward through the pope a letter of Augustine to Pelagius.
177.16The claim that one can be sinless in this life is refuted from Zechariah's priestly sacrifices for his own sins and the Lord's Prayer.
177.17“Whoever is born of God does not sin” refers to love, which grows in this life while desire remains until it is extinguished in the next.
177.18To hope for sinlessness by grace is a tolerable error; but no believer may claim not to need “forgive us our debts.”
177.19The bishops leave the rest to the pope's judgment and ask him to confirm that they share the same faith in grace.
178.1Augustine warns Bishop Hilary of a new heresy (Pelagianism) that limits grace to creation, law, and forgiveness of past sins, and denies infants need baptism.
178.2Augustine reports that the councils of Carthage and Numidia have written to Pope Innocent against the Pelagians.
178.3The heresy empties the Lord's Prayer, claiming one can become sinless and overcome temptation by nature alone.
179.1Augustine writes to John, bishop of Jerusalem, asking him to show his love for Pelagius by not being deceived by him.
179.2Augustine tells how two of Pelagius's disciples gave him Pelagius's book, which he answered.
179.3Pelagius's book identifies grace with created nature and leaves no room for the help of God sought in prayer.
179.4Pelagian teaching contradicts the church's blessings and Paul's prayers and statements about the Spirit's help.
179.5Augustine sends John both books so that he may see what Pelagius means by grace and lead him to confess true grace.
179.6Pelagius should be asked plainly whether we must pray not to sin and whether infants are freed from original sin by Christ's grace.
179.7Augustine asks for the record of the synod that cleared Pelagius and quotes Pelagius's own defense on the possibility of sinlessness.
179.8Augustine shows that Pelagius's book claimed Abel never sinned, contradicting his defense that no one is sinless from infancy.
179.9Pelagius must either admit original sin in Abel or retract his claim, since his defense implies everyone's early life is sinful.
179.10Augustine has witnesses that the book is Pelagius's and asks John to put the matter to him.
180.1Augustine writes to Oceanus, apologizing for a delayed reply to his letters.
180.2The real difficulty with the creation of each new soul is not adulterous conception but the condemnation of unbaptized infants.
180.3Figurative speech, such as Christ's saying that the Son does not know the day, is not lying, as Hilary showed.
180.4Paul's rebuke of Peter in Gal 2:14 is plain speech, not figure, and must be true.
180.5Jerome now agrees with Augustine and Cyprian on Gal 2; Augustine again asks for help on the soul's origin and for a book of Jerome on the resurrection.
181.1Pope Innocent I praises the Council of Carthage for referring the Pelagian case to the apostolic see, according to ancient custom.
181.2Innocent welcomes the council's request for a decree binding all churches against the Pelagians.
181.3Like a physician who amputates a festering limb, the church must cut off the error quickly.
181.4It is unjust and irreligious to owe one's existence to God yet deny owing him daily grace.
181.5We need God's help daily, whether living well or badly; free choice alone cannot overcome sin.
181.6David's constant prayer for God's help refutes the Pelagian claim that we do not need it.
181.7Adam fell by misusing freedom; Christ restores through baptism and continues to supply daily grace.
181.8Those who deny the need for divine help are enemies of the faith and unworthy of communion, and must be removed from the church.
181.9Innocent excommunicates the Pelagians but allows the bishops to receive them back if they repent and condemn their views.
182.1Pope Innocent I replies to the Council of Milevis, praising its pastoral concern both to exclude the erring and to receive the repentant.
182.2Innocent affirms that questions of faith are rightly referred to the see of Peter, from which answers flow to all provinces.
182.3The Pelagians, by denying God's help, abolish daily prayer; Adam's fall and David's prayers show our need of grace.
182.4Scripture everywhere joins God's help to free will; the council's testimonies suffice to refute Pelagius and Caelestius.
182.5Innocent rejects the claim that unbaptized infants can have eternal life, citing John 6:53 and Matt 19:14.
182.6Innocent excommunicates Pelagius and Caelestius and all who obstinately defend their views.
182.7Innocent allows Pelagius and Caelestius to be received back if they renounce their errors.
183.1Pope Innocent I writes to the five African bishops, welcoming their letter and reaffirming his judgment against the Pelagians.
183.2Innocent does not know of Pelagians in Rome but hopes that all followers will be corrected by Pelagius's condemnation.
183.3Innocent doubts the authenticity and the force of the acts of Diospolis, which reached him without official letters.
183.4Innocent hopes Pelagius will truly convert and seek pardon, but declines to summon him to Rome.
183.5Innocent condemns the book attributed to Pelagius and asks that he anathematize it for the sake of his followers.
184.1Augustine writes to the monks Peter and Abraham, referring them to his works and promising a brief answer.
184.2Unbaptized infants are condemned, though with the lightest punishment; there is no middle place between kingdom and punishment.
184.3Fleshly concupiscence, a result of the fall, accompanies all procreation except Christ's, so all who are born must be reborn.
184.4Unbelievers must be answered by argument, but faith is God's gift and must be prayed for, as Paul, Christ, and Stephen prayed for their persecutors.
184.5Augustine describes the plan and progress of the City of God (ten books done, the fourteenth in hand), which will answer their questions.
184.6Against those who deny God or his providence, the City of God will show that God exists and cares for human affairs.
184.7Augustine sends his books through the presbyter Firmus.
185.1Augustine explains to Boniface, a military officer, that the Donatists, unlike the Arians, confess one substance of the Trinity and differ only over communion.
185.2Heresies were foretold to test faith and love; the Donatists accept Christ from Scripture but not the church that Scripture also proclaims.
185.3The same Scriptures that foretell Christ foretell a church spread through all nations, not confined to Africa.
185.4Even if Caecilian were guilty, the worldwide church of Christ should not be abandoned because of one man.
185.5The charges against Caecilian rest on human testimony, while the worldwide church rests on the testimony of law, prophets, psalms, apostle, and Christ.
185.6The Donatists themselves first appealed to Emperor Constantine against Caecilian, so they cannot fault Catholics for appealing to emperors.
185.7The imperial laws against the Donatists, like the lions turned on Daniel's accusers, have in fact helped many by correcting them.
185.8Emperors' laws for the truth rightly punish the Donatists, as Nebuchadnezzar's law protecting the true God was just.
185.9It is the cause, not the suffering, that makes a martyr: Sarah persecuted Hagar justly, while Saul persecuted David unjustly.
185.10By the Donatists' own claim that the true church suffers rather than inflicts persecution, Caecilian belonged to it and their predecessors did not.
185.11There is just and unjust persecution: the church pursues the ungodly out of love to correct them, as Sarah disciplined Hagar.
185.12The Donatists' self-killing is an old custom, from provoking pagans and travelers to kill them to throwing themselves from cliffs or into fire and water.
185.13The laws free many who were held in the Donatist sect by fear, and they now give thanks for being compelled.
185.14Fear that a few Donatists will kill themselves must not keep the many from being saved; in most places peace has come without such deaths.
185.15Before the laws, Donatist bands (Circumcellions) terrorized masters, creditors, and officials and killed themselves at will.
185.16Many Donatists who disapproved of violence were shown the inconsistency of their schism, but most feared to cross over.
185.17The Donatists' readmission of the Maximianist schismatics, with their baptism, exposed their inconsistency and led many to return.
185.18Donatist violence left bishops a choice between silence and persecution, so appealing to Christian emperors was necessary.
185.19In the apostles' time kings opposed Christ; now, as Psalm 2 foretold, kings serve the Lord as kings by just laws, like Hezekiah, Josiah, and Darius.
185.20Now that kings worship Christ, they may not be indifferent to sacrilege any more than to adultery.
185.21Teaching is better than compulsion, but more people are corrected by fear; Scripture approves discipline for those words do not reach.
185.22Christ himself compelled Paul by striking him blind before teaching him, and Paul labored more than all.
185.23The church rightly compels her lost sons to return, as shepherds recover straying sheep; their baptism, like a royal mark, is recognized, not repeated.
185.24The parable's two stages, “bring in” then “compel,” show that compulsion belongs to the church's later age; the banquet is the unity of Christ's body.
185.25Augustine recalls that he first favored only fining Donatist clergy for violence, not compelling conversion, and the council at first asked for this.
185.26Violence such as the attack on Bishop Maximian of Bagai led the emperor to outlaw Donatism with fines and exile, though not death.
185.27Augustine recounts the Donatist assault on Maximian, Catholic bishop of Bagai, who survived being beaten, stabbed, and thrown from a tower.
185.28As Paul appealed to Roman law and Caesar, so bishops rightly seek the Christian emperor's protection; hence the emperor's laws for unity.
185.29When the laws arrived, many Donatists came over, some from fear lifted, others on reflection or following others.
185.30Most remaining Donatists were won over after the Conference of Carthage, but in some places Catholics still suffer maiming, murder, and arson.
185.31The sufferings of Catholics have borne fruit in greater unity; Augustine prays for the repentance of the rest.
185.32Like David mourning Absalom but consoled by peace, the church grieves for the few who die but rejoices in the many freed.
185.33Augustine compares the Donatists to two men in a collapsing house: one should be rescued even if the other kills himself.
185.34If we would rescue even one person from a falling house despite others' suicides, how much more must we work for eternal salvation.
185.35The Catholics do not covet Donatist property; they wish to share church goods, which belong to the poor, with those who join them.
185.36Donatist church property has passed by law to the Catholic Church; the Donatists are invited to share it in unity.
185.37The question is who belongs to the righteous, not who holds property; the Donatist claim to justify those they baptize usurps God's role.
185.38No one may claim to be righteous of himself or sinless in this life; the church will be without spot only at the resurrection.
185.39The whole church prays “forgive us our debts” and is cleansed through baptism toward the perfection Christ will give it on the last day.
185.40The church is now being cleansed and will be perfect at the resurrection; Christ justifies only his body, which the Donatists should enter.
185.41Wis 5:1 promises vindication only to the righteous: Naboth against Ahab, the Catholic against the heretic, not the reverse.
185.42No one cut off from the body of Christ can have righteousness, as a severed limb loses life; the Donatists should come in and share the church's goods.
185.43Donatists coming over are not rebaptized, but must do penance; they receive the unity of the Spirit and love, without which baptism does not profit.
185.44Receiving Donatist clergy in their offices is like grafting, a slight wound to the church's strictness healed by peace and love.
185.45The rule barring penitents from clerical office is discipline, not denial of pardon, and may be relaxed to heal a whole people's schism.
185.46Converted Donatist clergy may serve as clergy and bishops, but should repent humbly as Peter did and not grow proud of their reception.
185.47Receiving converted clergy in their offices follows the precedent of the Roman council of 313 and the Donatists' own treatment of the Maximianists.
185.48The Donatists' objection that rebaptism was an unforgivable sin against the Spirit would, if valid, exclude everyone who ever spoke against the Spirit.
185.49The unforgivable sin against the Spirit is final impenitence: refusing forgiveness in the church's unity until death.
185.50The Holy Spirit gives life only within the Catholic Church, the body of Christ; the Donatists have the sacrament outside but not its reality.
185.51Augustine closes by commending to Boniface the work of correcting the Donatists.
186.1Augustine and Alypius write to Paulinus of Nola about Pelagius, whom they once loved as orthodox and now love in hope of his correction, explaining how they came to know his teaching on grace.
186.2Augustine explains how the African councils of Carthage and Milevis and a private letter brought the case of Pelagius before Pope Innocent, who replied fittingly.
186.3The papal and conciliar documents show moderation toward persons but a firm suppression of the error, for grace not only forgives sins but enables both the will and the deed of righteousness.
186.4Only Christ distinguishes anyone from the mass of perdition; faith, good will and good works are all received, so works come from grace and not grace from works.
186.5Even the resolve to keep one's strength for God, like the prodigal son's turning home, is inspired by God, who is the true guardian.
186.6Before grace no one has good merits, only sins; grace is given freely, not paid as a debt, which is why it is called grace.
186.7Faith may be said to obtain grace, but only because it obtains love, which is itself God's gift; God works all good in the elect, including their love for him.
186.8Those who claim merit by their own will repeat carnal Israel's error of seeking righteousness by works, whereas true righteousness comes from God through faith.
186.9The righteousness of the law is called a man's own because the law commands without helping, while the righteousness of God is given through faith in Christ.
186.10No human merit precedes grace; grace itself merits increase and perfection, and even man's merit is God's free gift.
186.11The grace given to infants in baptism is plainly free, since it precedes any will of theirs and is even given to those who resist.
186.12Infants are born under the punishment owed to Adam's sin; God's distinguishing among them by grace is inscrutable but never unjust.
186.13The Pelagians argue from Esau and Jacob struggling in the womb that infants have free choice and personal sins.
186.14The twins' struggle was a portent, not an act of choice, as Paul shows by citing them as proof of grace given before any works.
186.15Paul's point about the unborn twins is that election is of grace, which makes people worthy rather than finding them so.
186.16Paul's answer to the charge of injustice is God's word to Moses: to free anyone from the deserved mass of death is mercy, and to punish the equally guilty is not injustice.
186.17Paul adds that salvation depends on God's mercy and that God uses even Pharaoh's hardening, acting in both by mercy and truth.
186.18Paul's image of the potter shows that since the whole human lump fell into condemnation through Adam's free choice, honour is from mercy and dishonour from just judgment.
186.19The holy lump of Rom 11 descends from Abraham by faith, whereas the lump of Rom 9 is Adam's, wholly under death, from which God makes vessels by mercy or judgment.
186.20Though God's judgments are unsearchable, one must hold that no one is justified by merit and no one is hardened without desert.
186.21Esau and Jacob had no works of their own, but both were born guilty in Adam, so the one freed should praise mercy and the one punished not blame judgment.
186.22To ask why God did not save both twins is like asking why he did not make more of every creature; God alone knows the proper number.
186.23Even those who put free choice first must face why God created those he foreknew would be damned; the only answer is Paul's image of the potter.
186.24Paul gives the reason: God shows his wrath on vessels of wrath so that the vessels of mercy may humbly recognize that they too deserved the same.
186.25The number of the saints is fixed in God's foreknowledge; called according to purpose, justified and glorified, they are saved by the election of grace.
186.26The rest were created to show what free choice can do without grace, so that the elect may learn what grace has given them.
186.27Those who deny original sin must say what becomes of infants who die unbaptized; Pelagius himself anathematized the view that such infants have eternal life.
186.28To say unbaptized infants have life contradicts Christ's words in John 6, the apostolic see, and Pelagius's own anathema.
186.29Some in Paulinus's city cling to the view that unbaptized infants have life, but Christ's words in John 6 force the admission that they cannot.
186.30Since unbaptized infants lack life and a just God would not condemn the innocent, their condemnation must come from original sin in Adam.
186.31God gathered a remnant even from unwilling Jerusalem by grace, and Augustine likewise cries out against those who resist the Church even after Pelagius's trial in Palestine.
186.32Augustine lists the propositions charged against Pelagius at Diospolis, which he had to anathematize.
186.33Whoever accepts Pelagius's anathemas must positively confess the Catholic counterparts: original sin, the need of baptism, grace for every act, and grace not given according to merit.
186.34Pelagius's later books still give the will equal power to sin or not to sin, or call it strong and firm, whereas it is weak until healed.
186.35Pelagius's statement that grace lets us fulfil commands 'more easily' implies that they can be fulfilled without grace.
186.36Scripture, as John of Jerusalem reminded Pelagius, says that nothing good is achieved without grace, not merely more easily; and Pelagius's 'even balance' contradicts his own concession.
186.37We should pray for the Pelagians, who like the philosophers trust the will and risk making void the cross, since nature could not even keep its health without grace.
186.38Though their error is their own fault, we must pray for them, as Paul prayed for unbelieving Israel, since belief itself requires God's grace.
186.39Augustine assures Paulinus that his letters show him a true lover of grace and explains why he has written at such length.
186.40Augustine quotes Paulinus's own lament over the corruption inherited from Adam as a confession of original sin.
186.41All were present in Adam when he sinned, saved only by Christ born of a virgin; Augustine praises Paulinus's prayers for grace and refers further news to the bearer.
187.1Augustine apologizes to Dardanus for his late reply, explaining that it came not from contempt but from the difficulty of answering worthily.
187.2Augustine asks Dardanus's indulgence, since his questions are deep and Augustine is overwhelmed with other cares.
187.3Dardanus asked how Christ, who promised the thief paradise that day, can now be in heaven, and whether Christ's humanity is everywhere.
187.4Augustine notes that Dardanus rightly holds Christ to be perfect man, with a human soul and mind, unlike the heretics who deny either.
187.5If spoken of Christ's humanity, the promise cannot mean heaven, since that day Christ's soul was in hell and his body in the tomb.
187.6Augustine is unsure whether Abraham's bosom belongs to hell, but suggests 'paradise' may be any place of blessed life, including that region visited by Christ's soul.
187.7The simpler explanation is that Christ spoke as God, who is everywhere, so that whoever is in paradise is with him.
187.8Christ is one person, God and man, as a man is one of soul and flesh, so each saying must be referred to the nature it concerns.
187.9Because of the unity of Christ's person, what belongs to one nature can be said of him under the other, as when the Lord of glory is said to be crucified.
187.10Christ's risen body, immortal but still a body, is in heaven, not everywhere; he is everywhere as God and in heaven as man.
187.11God is not spread through the world like a physical mass but whole everywhere, as wisdom is equally present in a small or a large man.
187.12Like health in the members of a body, immortality is equally present in every part, whatever its size.
187.13If a bodily quality like health can be whole in every part, far more can the Creator's substance be whole everywhere.
187.14God fills heaven and earth not as a quality or a mass but as the creating substance, whole in each place and whole everywhere.
187.15The three persons of the Trinity do not divide the world among them but are each and together everywhere, since they are not bodies.
187.16God is present everywhere by his divinity but dwells only in some by grace, which is why we pray 'Our Father, who are in heaven'.
187.17God dwells unequally in the saints, though he is whole in himself everywhere; nearness to him is likeness, as sight is nearness to light.
187.18God is everywhere because nowhere absent and in himself because not contained or needing the things to which he is present.
187.19As a sound is equally present to all hearers though received variously, so God is wholly present to each, though those in whom he dwells receive him according to their capacity.
187.20The Spirit divides gifts without being divided, as members share one health; the unity of Christ's body is shown in the Eucharistic sacrifice.
187.21Philosophers who knew God without thanking him are not his temple, while baptized infants who cannot yet know him are.
187.22Dardanus asked how John the Baptist could leap in the womb if infants do not know God.
187.23John's leaping was a miraculous sign wrought by God in the infant, recognized by Elizabeth through the Spirit, not an act of faith by the infant.
187.24Even if John had the use of reason in the womb, it was a miracle, no rule for other infants, like Balaam's ass or the twins in Rebecca's womb.
187.25Infants plainly know nothing of divine things; their resistance at baptism is not imputed to them precisely because they do not know what they do.
187.26The Holy Spirit dwells in baptized infants without their knowing it, as Paul said he dwelt in the immature Corinthians.
187.27The Spirit builds his temple in the baptized secretly and completes it only in the life to come; salvation is now in hope.
187.28Even after baptism the whole Church prays 'Forgive us our debts'; she will be without spot or wrinkle only in the life to come.
187.29God dwells even in immature believers who hold the common rule of faith in the Church, and will complete their understanding hereafter.
187.30Birth belongs to Adam and rebirth to Christ; Christ, who had no sin, needed only to be born, but by his baptism commended our regeneration.
187.31Every child of a lawful marriage is born through concupiscence and must be reborn; Christ alone, conceived of the Virgin without concupiscence, needed no rebirth.
187.32Whatever sanctification may be possible in the womb, the sanctification that makes one God's temple belongs only to the reborn, who must first be born.
187.33Rebirth presupposes birth from the mother, so no one can be reborn in the womb; only the reborn are built into God's temple, the Church.
187.34The righteous of old were saved by the same faith in Christ, then hidden and now revealed, even those who lived before circumcision.
187.35God dwells only in the reborn, his true temple, of which the tabernacle and Solomon's temple were signs.
187.36Miracles done by those outside the temple, like the exorcist who did not follow Jesus, or graces given to Cornelius before baptism, come from God's general presence.
187.37Jeremiah's sanctification in the womb is best understood as predestination, as when the Gospel calls the unbaptized Gentiles 'children of God' before they are gathered into one.
187.38God dwells in his temple, the Church, tossed like Noah's ark in this world, and will reign in it for ever.
187.39The fullness of the divinity dwells 'bodily' in Christ either as reality contrasted with shadow or because his body is God's temple.
187.40Christ differs from the greatest saints not only by the fullness of divinity dwelling in him but by the singular union of his humanity with the Word in one person, a pure grace.
187.41Augustine concludes: think of God's presence without bodily images, of his dwelling as the gathering of the saints, and of Christ as everywhere as God and in heaven as man.
188.1Alypius and Augustine write to the widow Juliana, rejoicing that her daughter Demetrias, after their exhortation, chose consecrated virginity instead of marriage.
188.2Augustine explains his concern to warn Juliana against teachings contrary to grace, quoting her grateful reply.
188.3Augustine warns Juliana that the error of those who limit grace to nature and teaching and deny that love is God's gift is not small.
188.4Augustine quotes the book written to Demetrias, which tells her that her spiritual riches can come only from herself.
188.5Saying spiritual goods are 'in' Demetrias is true, but saying they are 'from' her alone is poison; Paul teaches that the treasure is God's.
188.6Virginity is God's gift, as Paul and Christ teach; Demetrias's virginity, surpassing her mother's state, is truly theirs but not from them, like the daily bread we ask for.
188.7Demetrias should pray and give thanks, recognizing that her goods are in her but not from her alone, since God works both the will and the deed by inspiring love.
188.8Solomon knew continence was God's gift and prayed for it; Pelagius's words would make Demetrias think it comes from herself alone.
188.9Augustine trusts that Demetrias, if she read the book, prayed that her glory might be God and not herself.
188.10Augustine asks Juliana to confirm Demetrias's disposition, noting that denying God's goodness its source offends the Trinity itself.
188.11Pelagius's apparent statements about grace are ambiguous, referring grace only to nature, teaching, forgiveness, or Christ's example.
188.12Augustine challenges Juliana to find in the book any confession of grace beyond nature, teaching and forgiveness, and asks whether it is Pelagius's work and whether she has it.
189.1Augustine writes hastily to the general Boniface at the request of Faustus, who was travelling to him.
189.2Augustine sums up his advice to Boniface in the two commandments of love, which he should grow in by prayer and good works.
189.3By love the saints and martyrs pleased God, and believers advance toward the vision of God, which surpasses all created beauty.
189.4Military service does not exclude pleasing God, as David, the centurion, Cornelius and the soldiers instructed by John the Baptist show.
189.5Monks fight for soldiers by prayer and soldiers for monks by arms; in this world the good must live among the wicked until the proper time.
189.6Augustine counsels Boniface to keep faith even with enemies, to wage war only of necessity for the sake of peace, and to show mercy to the conquered.
189.7Augustine urges Boniface to conjugal chastity, sobriety and detachment from riches, to humility and prayer, and to ready forgiveness of others.
190.1Augustine writes to Bishop Optatus, whose letter he read at Caesarea, on the question whether souls are propagated from Adam's soul or newly created for each person.
190.2Augustine admits he has never reached a definite view on the origin of the soul and still hesitates between the two opinions.
190.3Whatever the soul's origin, one must hold firmly that all are born guilty in Adam and freed only by rebirth in Christ.
190.4The question may remain open only within limits: the soul is a creature, not part of God, not a body, and not sent into the body for sins in a previous life.
190.5Whether souls are new or propagated, the faith must stand that no one, adult or infant, is freed from original sin except through Christ the mediator.
190.6The righteous of the Old Testament were saved by the same faith in Christ as Christians, though their sacraments differed.
190.7The law was given not to justify but to convict proud humanity of sin, so that it might seek the medicine of grace.
190.8All the righteous, before and after the incarnation, live by faith in Christ, the only saving name since Adam's fall.
190.9God creates even those destined to damnation because the whole lump from Adam is condemned; birth makes vessels of wrath by just punishment, rebirth vessels of mercy by grace.
190.10God's wrath is just retribution on humanity born of disobedience; his power uses even the wicked to teach the elect that grace alone distinguishes them, as is clearest with infants.
190.11If only the elect were born, grace would not be recognized as grace; the condemnation of others shows the saved what they have been given.
190.12God allows the condemned to outnumber the elect, showing both the justice owed to the whole lump and the mercy by which he makes some vessels for honour.
190.13If Optatus holds that new souls are created for each person, he must explain how they incur original condemnation without making God the author of sin or of injustice.
190.14If creationism cannot explain original sin, one should not rashly adopt traducianism, especially Tertullian's materialist version.
190.15Even a spiritual traducianism, which preserves original sin, faces insoluble questions about how a soul could be transmitted from parent to child.
190.16God is certainly the creator of every soul, but whether he makes souls from Adam's or from nothing is not clearly revealed and should not be defined by conjecture.
190.17The proof-texts offered for the creation of new souls, including Eccl 12:7, can all be answered by the traducianists, so Scripture leaves the question open.
190.18Traducianists cite Gen 46:26, 'souls … who came out of Jacob's thighs', and read Gen 2:23 as part for whole.
190.19Gen 46:26 does not prove traducianism, since 'soul' can stand for the body by metonymy and the masculine 'who came out' refers to the persons.
190.20Augustine recounts how a friend consulted Jerome, who favoured the creation of souls, and how Augustine wrote Jerome a book asking to be taught.
190.21Augustine keeps his book to Jerome private until he receives an answer showing how new souls could incur original sin without God being its author.
190.22Augustine warns Optatus against the Pelagian heresy condemned by Innocent and Zosimus, which uses the creation of new souls to deny original sin, quoting Pelagius's argument.
190.23If Optatus cannot reconcile the creation of new souls with original sin, he must drop the theory, since infant baptism truly remits sins, as Zosimus's letter affirms.
190.24Better to leave the soul's origin unknown than to make God the author of sin, posit an evil nature, or empty infant baptism.
190.25Whatever the origin of other souls, Christ's soul certainly contracted no sin from Adam.
190.26Augustine closes by inviting Optatus to teach him anything certain on the soul's origin while keeping the faith and the peace of the Church.
191.1Augustine joyfully thanks the Roman presbyter Sixtus for his letter defending grace against the Pelagians, whose patron he had been rumoured to be.
191.2Augustine urges Sixtus to restrain open Pelagians, watch over those who spread the error secretly, and patiently teach those who have fallen silent out of fear.
192.1Augustine replies to the deacon Caelestinus with a meditation on love as a debt always paid and always owed, even to enemies.
192.2Unlike money, love grows by being given and demanded, so Augustine both repays and still owes Caelestinus love, as Rom 13:8 commands.
193.1Augustine apologizes to Mercator for his delayed reply, caused by business at Carthage and a journey to Mauretania.
193.2Augustine welcomes Mercator's anti-Pelagian writings and encourages him to persevere, since many wise defenders are the world's health.
193.3The Pelagians concede that infants believe through their sponsors; then, by John 3:36, unbaptized infants are unbelievers on whom God's wrath remains, which can only be from original sin.
193.4Having admitted that infants believe, the Pelagians must accept that unbaptized infants, as unbelievers, are condemned, which implies original sin.
193.5Enoch and Elijah, who did not die, do not disprove that bodily death is the punishment of sin; God may remit the penalty to some.
193.6Death entered through sin, so that no one dies except because of sin, even if God spares some from dying, just as no one is justified except through Christ.
193.7The real difficulty is why the baptized still die, which Augustine treated in his books on infant baptism; that the justified Elijah did not die is no difficulty.
193.8Enoch and Elijah were removed from this life precisely because no one lives here without sin, and they will probably die at the world's end.
193.9Paul seems to say that some found alive at Christ's coming will not die but be changed and caught up, though this does not help the Pelagians.
193.10Augustine would welcome correction from more learned interpreters, since other texts suggest all must die before resurrection, and his own writings have no canonical authority.
193.11If Paul means that some will not die, this fits the creed's 'living and dead' as those alive or dead at Christ's coming, and the other texts must then be reconciled.
193.12Whatever the answer, bodily death would not have come without sin, and the resurrection of the righteous shows grace more wonderfully than exemption from death.
193.13Augustine asks Mercator to send anything definite he finds on whether some will not die, since he loves learning more than teaching and God alone gives growth.
194.1Augustine tells Sixtus of his joy that Sixtus, once rumoured to favour the Pelagians, has anathematized them and written clearly in defence of grace.
194.2Augustine urges Sixtus to deal with three kinds of Pelagians: open defenders to be restrained, secret propagandists to be tracked down, and silent sympathizers to be patiently taught.
194.3Denying that a good will needs God's help inflates rather than strengthens free choice.
194.4God is no respecter of persons when he freely saves some from a common mass of condemnation, since punishment is owed and grace is not.
194.5If it is unjust to free one of two equally guilty, then justice would punish both; God's choice shows both justice and grace and is hidden in the depth of his wisdom.
194.6The Pelagians want some merit to precede grace, but God's mercy and truth meet so that the saved have no merit before being freely justified, though the righteous then have merits.
194.7Though Pelagius anathematized the view that grace is given by merit, his followers still teach it, contrary to Romans, which teaches that grace justifies the ungodly.
194.8The Pelagians claim that the grace given without merit is human nature, but the grace Paul commends is that by which sinners are justified through Christ.
194.9Even forgiveness is obtained by faith, so faith itself, the beginning of all merit, must be God's free gift.
194.10Faith, which prays, is itself given before prayer; why one believes and another does not lies in God's unsearchable but just judgment.
194.11After forgiveness the Holy Spirit must dwell in the soul and pour in love; Christian faith works through love, unlike the faith of demons.
194.12Faith that draws people to Christ is the Father's gift, as John 6 shows, given also by the Son and Spirit, since the Trinity's works are inseparable.
194.13The defenders of free choice repeat the objection Paul answered in Rom 9: why does God still find fault?
194.14Hardening has its merit in sin, as God simply withholds mercy, but mercy has no merit, or it would not be grace.
194.15Faith cannot merit grace, since faith itself is received, like the gifts of the Spirit listed by Isaiah and Paul, by God's mercy.
194.16Prayer cannot merit grace, since prayer itself is a gift: the Spirit 'intercedes' by making us pray.
194.17Paul means the Holy Spirit, who helps our weakness and is said to cry out because he makes us cry 'Abba, Father'.
194.18Faith and prayer, like all virtues, come from the one Holy Spirit, who helps unbelievers to believe and dwells in believers to help them further.
194.19When God crowns our merits he crowns his own gifts; even eternal life, given for merits, is grace because the merits themselves were given.
194.20One would expect Paul to call eternal life the wages of righteousness or faith, which would also be true.
194.21Paul calls eternal life 'the grace of God' rather than wages of righteousness to exclude pride, since righteousness itself is received; we receive 'grace for grace'.
194.22Those who live badly cannot excuse themselves for lack of grace, since their evil is their own; the vessels of mercy should glorify God, not themselves.
194.23To those who blame God's will for their hardness, Augustine repeats Paul's answer; it suffices to believe that God frees by mercy and condemns by justice, his reasons being unsearchable.
194.24Adults who know the truth and still disobey deserve heavier condemnation and are, as Paul says, without excuse.
194.25Those instructed by the law who judge others while doing the same are even more inexcusable than the pagans who knew God from creation.
194.26Christ said that those who heard him had no excuse, since pride thinks itself excused only when it sins from ignorance.
194.27Even those who never heard the law are inexcusable through original sin; ignorance is either sin or the punishment of sin.
194.28Knowing sinners are inexcusable by their own standard, yet even Paul, who knew and delighted in the law, needed grace to be set free.
194.29Because the saved are freed by grace alone, the excuse 'who resists his will?' cannot be just; it is folly that blames God.
194.30God makes the vessels of wrath but condemns, not causes, their iniquity, which comes from the human will; only grace frees, inspiring faith, fear and prayer.
194.31The Pelagian objection fails with infants: why does one die baptized and another unbaptized, when no merit distinguishes them and fate or fortune cannot be invoked?
194.32God's providence brings some infants of the ungodly to baptism while infants of believers die unbaptized, which no human merit can explain.
194.33Since infants have no merits, the Pelagians should acknowledge with Paul the unsearchable depth of God's judgments and allow Christ to save at any age.
194.34God's love of Jacob and hatred of Esau before birth show election by grace: he loved in Jacob his own gift and hated in Esau original sin.
194.35The Pelagian appeal to foreseen works is refuted by Paul himself, who answered the charge of injustice not by foreseen works but by God's free mercy.
194.36Paul's purpose was to commend grace through the children of promise, since what God promises God himself performs.
194.37Isaac's birth from a barren mother signified the children of promise, and 'one act of intercourse' excludes any merit of the parents distinguishing Jacob from Esau.
194.38Paul wanted Jacob to glory only in the Lord, recognizing that grace alone distinguished him from Esau in the same condemned mass.
194.39Paul elsewhere teaches election by grace without works, and in Rom 9 concludes that God has mercy freely and hardens justly.
194.40Whoever hears Paul's answer and despises it is justly hardened; whoever does not despise it has been freely helped.
194.41Foreseen works cannot explain why some dying infants are baptized and others not, since they will never have works.
194.42The theory that God punishes sins infants would have committed is absurd and contradicts the Pelagians' own promise of salvation for unbaptized infants.
194.43Augustine reports these views because he has heard them; the Pelagians, cornered by Scripture and the rite of infant baptism with its exorcism and renunciation, resort to folly.
194.44Children of baptized parents still inherit sin through concupiscence, as the seed of a cultivated olive yields a wild olive; the Church must baptize all infants, as farmers graft all shoots.
194.45The Pelagian claim that infants profess belief in the remission of sins only for others is a laughable evasion.
194.46The exorcism of infants shows the devil rules them through sin; and since the Pelagians admit infants believe through sponsors, unbaptized infants as unbelievers are condemned, which presupposes original sin.
194.47Augustine asks Sixtus to report further Pelagian arguments and his own replies, since heresies rouse the Church to study Scripture more carefully.
195.1Jerome writes to Augustine praising his steadfastness against the Pelagians, for which heretics hate them both.
196.1Augustine replies, at the request of the aged primate Donatianus, to Bishop Asellicus's letter about avoiding Judaizing.
196.2Paul taught in Galatians that Christians, especially Gentiles, must not Judaize, since justification is by faith in Christ.
196.3Not only the ceremonial works of the law but even its moral command 'You shall not covet' does not justify without faith in Christ, as Rom 7 shows.
196.4The law is holy, but sin uses it to make those who rely on their own powers transgressors, so that grace may superabound.
196.5The law shows our weakness by increasing desire; grace renews the inner self so that we do not follow our desires, though only in the resurrection will such desires cease.
196.6'You shall not covet' sets a goal reached only by grace through faith; the law's use is to drive us to the medicine of grace in Christ.
196.7Those who glory in the law without grace, whether Jews or Pelagians, refuse God's righteousness; the Pelagians thus Judaize in error, and their leaders have been excommunicated.
196.8To avoid Judaizing one must drop the ceremonial observances, which were shadows, and keep the moral law of love, attributing all progress in it to grace.
196.9A Christian may be called a Jew or Israelite only spiritually, as Paul's 'Jew inwardly' in Rom 2 shows, but should not use the name in ordinary speech.
196.10Christians are Jews spiritually as they are Abraham's offspring by faith, as Paul argues in Romans 4 and Galatians 3.
196.11Jews who do not believe in Christ are not Abraham's sons in Paul's sense, while believing Gentiles are spiritual Jews and Israelites grafted into the olive tree.
196.12In Paul's allegory of Sarah and Hagar, Christians belong spiritually to Sarah and the free Jerusalem, while carnal Israel belongs to Hagar.
196.13Spiritually, Christians belong to Sarah and Jacob-Israel, while unbelieving Jews belong to Hagar and Esau, so that 'the elder will serve the younger'.
196.14Christians should not call themselves Jews or Israelites in ordinary speech, since the apostles, who knew the spiritual sense, kept those names for Abraham's physical descendants.
196.15Paul's own usage, distinguishing Jews, Greeks and the Church and calling himself an Israelite by descent, shows that 'Jew' and 'Israel' properly name physical descendants.
196.16Aptus, who calls himself a Jew and urges Christians to keep the food laws, does so carnally; Christians keep the moral law by grace and hold the names Jew and Israel only in the spiritual sense.
197.1Augustine sends Hesychius Jerome's expositions of the prophecies, holding that Daniel's weeks refer to past events and that the time of Christ's return cannot be calculated.
197.2Augustine argues that Christ's words in Acts 1:7 forbid calculating even the times, explaining the difference between the Greek words chronos and kairos.
197.3Augustine says the apostles asked about the opportune time for the kingdom, and that computing the date of the end is wanting to know what Christ said no one can know.
197.4Augustine notes the end will not come before the gospel is preached to all nations, but even that would not tell us how much time remains.
197.5Augustine explains that he wrote because of someone who referred Daniel's weeks to Christ's second coming, and he prefers cautious ignorance to false knowledge.
198.1Hesychius, bishop of Salona, thanks Augustine for his letter and Jerome's writings and sets out his own views on the end times.
198.2Hesychius argues that the older reading of Acts 1:7 ("it is not yours to know") restricts the apostles' role rather than forbidding all knowledge of the times.
198.3Hesychius gathers Scripture passages in which the Lord and the apostles urge believers to recognize the times.
198.4Hesychius argues from Scripture that Christ's coming is to be loved and awaited.
198.5Hesychius holds that the date cannot be calculated but that most of the signs of Christ's coming foretold in the Gospels have been fulfilled in his own time.
198.6Hesychius argues that the gospel has already been preached throughout the world, its growth slowed by persecution but quickened under the Christian emperors.
198.7Hesychius questions whether Daniel's weeks were fulfilled at Christ's birth and passion, since Christ himself spoke of the abomination of desolation as still to come.
199.1Augustine praises Hesychius for urging love of Christ's coming and argues that ignorance of its time does not prevent the faithful from longing for it.
199.2Augustine distinguishes innocent ignorance of the end's timing from moral negligence, and says each person's last day determines how the last day of the world will find him.
199.3Augustine explains that Christ's command to all to watch applies to every Christian because each person's death fixes the state in which he will be judged.
199.4Augustine objects that even if Acts 1:7 meant only that the apostles should not teach the times, no later teacher could presume to know or teach what they were not given.
199.5Augustine argues that if the prophets had revealed the date, the apostles would have known and taught it, so God withheld the knowledge because it would not be profitable.
199.6Augustine replies that Christ's warnings about the faithful servant and about discerning the time call for constant watchfulness and recognition of his first coming, not calculation of the second.
199.7Augustine notes that Paul's mention of perilous last times does not reveal how long those times will last.
199.8Augustine observes that 1 Thessalonians 5 describes how the end will come, not when, and that the cry of "peace and security" is not yet heard.
199.9Augustine argues that Paul told the Thessalonians only what they needed, namely that the Lord's hour will come like a thief, and so kept within Christ's words to the apostles.
199.10Augustine notes that the obscure prophecy of 2 Thessalonians 2 says nothing about how long the mystery of iniquity will work.
199.11Augustine says 2 Thessalonians 2 foretells the Antichrist's appearance and destruction but says nothing of when.
199.12Augustine replies that Christ's rebuke of Jerusalem and the saying "the times are fulfilled" concern his first coming and the fall of Jerusalem, not the second coming.
199.13Augustine asks Hesychius to show how the visions of Daniel 7 reveal the time of Christ's coming, if he can.
199.14Augustine restates the Scripture passages Hesychius cited on the blessedness of those who love Christ's coming.
199.15Augustine argues that love of Christ's coming lies in awaiting it with faith, hope, and love, not in asserting that it is near or far.
199.16Augustine asks Hesychius whether he thinks the time of the end can be defined at least approximately, and if so, on what grounds.
199.17Augustine notes that John's "last hour" has already lasted centuries, and mentions those who treat six thousand years as a day of twelve hours.
199.18Augustine shows that the schemes dividing world history into hours fail on their own terms, and that John's "hour" means an unknown time.
199.19Augustine argues that the shortening of the days cannot mean that Daniel's numbered weeks would be falsified, since the prophecy itself would then be untrue.
199.20Augustine reasons that if Daniel's weeks referred to the second coming, one could confidently say it would come within seventy to a hundred years, since shortening could only make the time less.
199.21Augustine argues that most expositors have shown Daniel's weeks fulfilled at Christ's first coming, especially in the anointing and slaying of the Messiah.
199.22Augustine agrees that the end grows nearer daily, but notes that Paul's descriptions of the last times already applied in his own day.
199.23Augustine explains that the wicked of the last days will multiply as the end approaches, and that Peter already spoke of "the last days" at Pentecost.
199.24Augustine concludes that every generation since the apostles lives in the last days, but how far off the final day is cannot be known.
199.25Augustine explains that Christ's discourse in the Synoptic Gospels concerns three things: the destruction of Jerusalem, his coming through the Church, and his final coming.
199.26Augustine warns that the signs in Christ's discourse must be carefully assigned to the fall of Jerusalem, his coming in the Church, or his final coming.
199.27Augustine shows from Luke's parallel that the warning to pregnant and nursing women, ambiguous in Matthew and Mark, refers to the destruction of Jerusalem.
199.28Augustine compares the three Gospel accounts to show that Luke places the abomination of desolation at the Roman siege of Jerusalem.
199.29Augustine explains that the shortening of days for the elect refers to the siege of Jerusalem, where God's chosen among the Jews were spared unbearable suffering.
199.30Augustine holds that Luke shows the shortened days and the abomination belong to Jerusalem's fall, citing Josephus on the unparalleled sufferings of that siege.
199.31Augustine agrees with Hesychius that the abomination was not fulfilled before Christ's passion, but argues it was fulfilled at the fall of Jerusalem rather than at the end of the age.
199.32Augustine interprets the command not to go back for one's goods spiritually, as a warning against falling back from spiritual progress in any tribulation.
199.33Augustine argues that if Daniel's weeks were fulfilled in Christ, this explains why the apostles were told it was not theirs to know the time of the end.
199.34Augustine argues that the heavenly signs of his day are no greater than past ones, and that the darkening of the sun at the crucifixion was uniquely miraculous because it occurred at full moon.
199.35Augustine notes that wars have always afflicted the world, as under Gallienus, and that Christ's prophecy may refer to the struggle of Christ's and the devil's kingdoms.
199.36Augustine asks how present calamities can be sure signs of the end when Paul says the end will come while people say "peace and security."
199.37Augustine suggests that the foretold tribulation will fall on the Church alone while its persecutors feel secure, whereas present evils afflict good and wicked alike amid continuing revelry.
199.38Augustine observes that even faithful Christians still marry, farm, trade, and govern, which will not be so when the foretold signs of the end come.
199.39Augustine interprets the darkened sun, moon, and falling stars as the Church obscured in the last persecution, when many who seemed to shine will fall away.
199.40Augustine explains that the "distress of nations" refers to the wicked who will oppress the Church, present among all peoples alongside the oppressed faithful.
199.41Augustine says the Son of Man's coming in a cloud can mean either his coming in the Church or his bodily return as he ascended.
199.42Augustine notes that in Luke the Son of Man's coming in a cloud is followed by the words "the kingdom of God is near," suggesting it is not the final coming itself.
199.43Augustine shows that Mark keeps the same order, placing the coming in the clouds and the gathering of the elect before the nearness of the end.
199.44Augustine argues from Matthew's "all these things" that the coming of the Son of Man in the clouds is itself a sign that the end is near.
199.45Augustine proposes that much of the Gospels' language about Christ's coming may refer to his continual coming in the Church, except for passages like Matthew 25 that clearly describe the final judgment.
199.46Augustine argues that the gospel has not yet reached the whole world, citing the many unevangelized peoples of the African interior.
199.47Augustine argues from God's promise to Abraham and from the Psalms that the Church must spread to every nation and island, including those beyond Roman rule.
199.48Augustine argues that the Church must exist in every nation, though not all in each will believe, so that both the elect and those who hate them are found among all peoples.
199.49Augustine explains that Christ's commission to witness to the ends of the earth, like his promise to be with them always, was addressed to the apostles but applies to the whole Church.
199.50Augustine explains that Paul, like the prophets, used the past tense of things still to come, so Romans 10:18 does not mean the gospel had already reached the whole world.
199.51Augustine says Paul's words in Colossians describe the gospel's ongoing growth, and since no one knows when it will fill the world, no one knows when the end will come.
199.52Augustine introduces three good servants, one expecting the Lord soon, one later, and one admitting ignorance, to ask which best agrees with the gospel.
199.53Augustine concludes that the servant who confesses ignorance of the time agrees best with the gospel, and warns of the danger to faith in predicting an early end.
200.1Augustine thanks Count Valerius for three letters and for the presbyter Firmus's warm report of his Christian character.
200.2Augustine praises Valerius's Catholic faith, humility, generosity, and zeal against heresy, while caring for heretics' salvation.
200.3Augustine praises Valerius's conjugal chastity and sends him a book on the subject, explained in its own preface.
201.1The emperors Honorius and Theodosius II inform Bishop Aurelius of Carthage that they have renewed the decree expelling Pelagius and Caelestius and penalizing anyone who shelters them.
201.2The emperors direct Aurelius to require all bishops to subscribe to the condemnation of Pelagius and Caelestius on pain of deposition, exile, and excommunication.
202.1Jerome writes to Alypius and Augustine rejoicing that, with their help, the heresy of Caelestius has been defeated, though its adherents still hate them.
202.2Jerome explains that grief and illness kept him from answering Annianus of Celeda, the Pelagian, and sends greetings from Albina, Pinianus, Melania, and Paula.
203.1Augustine urges Largus, after his worldly misfortunes, to despise the vanities of this world and turn to the hope of the godly.
204.1Augustine replies to the tribune Dulcitius, explaining that the suicides of some Donatists should not halt the work of bringing the many back to unity.
204.2Augustine argues that the many returning to unity outweigh the few Donatists who kill themselves, comparing the Church's grief to David's mourning for Absalom.
204.3Augustine approves Dulcitius's edicts at Thamugadi but notes the Donatists misread his words as a death threat, since he had no power to execute them.
204.4Augustine recalls his earlier arguments that the cause, not the punishment, makes a martyr, that rulers may punish sacrilege, and that receiving Donatists without rebaptism does not mean receiving them unchanged.
204.5Augustine argues from Scripture that suicide is murder, since even killing a dying man at his request is forbidden.
204.6Augustine answers the Donatists' appeal to Razis in 2 Maccabees by arguing that not every deed recorded in Scripture is to be imitated, and that Razis acted from pride.
204.7Augustine says Scripture narrates rather than praises Razis's suicide, and that by Sirach's standard he showed impatience rather than wisdom.
204.8Augustine argues that Razis's death, though great, was not good, since either he was not righteous or his killing himself was the killing of a righteous man.
204.9Augustine promises the people of Thamugadi a full reply to both letters of Gaudentius, the Donatist bishop.
205.1Augustine tells Consentius that he knows him by his mind though not by sight, and turns to answer the questions he sent.
205.2Augustine answers Consentius that Christ's risen body is in heaven as it was when he ascended, with flesh and bones, preserved from corruption by God's power.
205.3Augustine declines to speculate about blood or the bodily humors in Christ's risen body, insisting only that it is free of corruption.
205.4Augustine argues from the three young men in the furnace that God can preserve the features of a body while removing all corruption from it.
205.5Augustine explains that in 1 Corinthians 15:50 "flesh and blood" means the corruption of flesh, not its substance, since Christ's risen flesh cannot wither.
205.6Augustine explains Paul's seed analogy: if God can add to a bare seed what it lacked, he can much more restore what belonged to the human body.
205.7Augustine interprets Paul's comparisons of flesh and heavenly bodies as showing that the risen will differ in glory according to their merits.
205.8Augustine argues that since believers will rise incorruptible, glorious, powerful, and spiritual, Christ's own risen body cannot be less.
205.9Augustine concludes that Christ's body, once mortal and taken from Adam, is now incorruptible, glorious, and spiritual, and explains the difference between an animal and a spiritual body.
205.10Augustine rejects the view that the spiritual body becomes spirit, holding that Christ's risen flesh is a true body, and that Adam would have passed to a spiritual body without death had he not sinned.
205.11Augustine explains that Christ took a mortal body to heal us by humility, and interprets the first and last Adam as the living soul and the life-giving spirit.
205.12Augustine interprets the earthly and heavenly man as mortals through Adam and immortals through Christ, who became mortal without changing his divine nature.
205.13Augustine shows that Paul's added phrase "nor will corruption possess incorruption" explains "flesh and blood" as mortal corruption.
205.14Augustine explains that all will rise, but only the righteous will be changed into incorruption, while the wicked rise to everlasting torment.
205.15Augustine explains that all will rise with whole bodies, but only the righteous will put on incorruption and immortality, while the wicked remain subject to the pain of punishment.
205.16Augustine illustrates by the two senses of "temptation" how flesh in substance will inherit the kingdom while flesh as corruption will not.
205.17Augustine affirms that God still forms each body individually, since he continues to work in governing creation, as Scripture shows.
205.18Augustine refers Consentius to his book on whether baptized persons dying unrepentant in grave sin will eventually be pardoned.
205.19Augustine answers that the breath God breathed into Adam either is the soul or made it, but in either case the soul is created and not part of God's substance.
206.1Augustine commends Bishop Felix to Count Valerius and asks him to help him.
207.1Augustine sends Bishop Claudius his reply to Julian of Eclanum's four books, explaining that his earlier answer had relied on inaccurate extracts.
208.1Augustine writes to console and exhort Felicia, a consecrated virgin troubled by scandals in the Church.
208.2Augustine explains that both good and self-seeking pastors will exist in the Church until the end, as Christ foretold, and that one must persevere.
208.3Augustine says good and bad are mixed in the Church's flock until Christ separates them, and that the Donatists, by separating early, cut themselves off from unity.
208.4Augustine begins to explain how Christ teaches believers to regard good and bad pastors without leaving the Church's unity.
208.5Augustine explains that Christ's sheep hear his voice even through bad pastors, doing what they teach but not what they do, and imitate good pastors without placing their hope in them.
208.6Augustine teaches that good sheep place their hope in Christ, not in pastors, and that the Catholic Church spread through the world contains good and bad, while those separated from it cannot be good.
208.7Augustine urges Felicia to hold fast to the Church, since her virginity would have profited nothing outside its unity, and to place her hope in Christ who compelled her to come in.
209.1Augustine congratulates Pope Celestine on his peaceful election and asks his help in a crisis Augustine himself caused.
209.2Augustine explains how Fussala, a former Donatist town forty miles from Hippo, was won to unity at great cost, and why he arranged for it to have its own bishop.
209.3Augustine recounts how, when his chosen candidate withdrew, he hastily had the young reader Antoninus ordained bishop of Fussala.
209.4Augustine reports that Antoninus was cleared of charges of sexual immorality but found guilty of oppression and extortion, for which he was ordered to make restitution rather than deposed.
209.5Augustine explains that Antoninus kept his episcopal rank but was removed from authority over the people of Fussala, whose resentment was dangerous.
209.6Augustine asks Celestine to study the records of Antoninus's conduct and how he deceived the primate of Numidia into commending him to Pope Boniface.
209.7Augustine rebuts Antoninus's claim that he must either keep his see or lose his rank, arguing that a bishop can be punished without being deposed.
209.8Augustine cites recent cases of bishops in Mauretania Caesariensis who were punished by Rome or with its approval without being deposed.
209.9Augustine begs Celestine to protect the people of Fussala from Antoninus's threats of force and to show mercy to both parties.
209.10Augustine confesses he is so distressed by his mistake that he has thought of resigning his see, and asks Celestine to bring relief.
210.1Augustine writes to the nuns Felicitas and Rusticus that God's goodness even to the wicked shows what he prepares for the faithful, and urges them to bear with one another in love.
210.2Augustine teaches the nuns how to give and receive correction in love and urges them to end quarrels quickly before anger corrupts the heart.
211.1Augustine tells the nuns of Hippo that he stayed away during their dispute so as not to have to punish them.
211.2Augustine says he stayed away to spare them and himself, praying instead for the community whose holy life had been his consolation.
211.3Augustine warns the nuns that a few have led the community astray and urges them to pray to be freed from quarrels and dissension.
211.4Augustine rebukes the nuns for seeking to replace their long-serving prioress and urges them to repent like Peter rather than Judas.
211.5Augustine sets out the first rule of the monastery: one heart and soul, common property, and distribution to each according to need.
211.6Augustine warns poor sisters against pride in their new status and rich sisters against disdain or pride in their gifts, urging all to honor God in one another.
211.7Augustine prescribes set times of prayer, reserves the oratory for prayer, and asks that the heart attend to what the voice sings.
211.8Augustine prescribes fasting as health permits, no eating outside mealtimes except for the sick, and reading aloud during meals.
211.9Augustine explains that sisters of delicate upbringing and the convalescent may receive more, and urges all to count frugality as true riches.
211.10Augustine instructs the nuns on modest dress and conduct in public, warning that unchaste looks destroy chastity even without bodily sin.
211.11Augustine prescribes a procedure of private warning, witnesses, report to the prioress, and correction or expulsion for sisters who persist in faults.
211.12Augustine rules that clothes be kept in common and work done for the common good, since love puts common things before its own.
211.13Augustine regulates the washing of clothes, monthly baths, care of the sick, going out in threes, and the duties of those who keep stores, clothes, and books.
211.14Augustine directs the nuns to end quarrels quickly, ask and give forgiveness, avoid harsh words, and keep their love spiritual rather than carnal.
211.15Augustine directs the nuns to obey the prioress and the presbyter, and describes the prioress as one who serves in love and must give account to God.
211.16Augustine concludes the rule, asking that it be read weekly as a mirror for self-examination.
212.1Augustine commends the widow Galla and her daughter, the virgin Simpliciola, to Bishop Quintilian, noting that they carry relics of the martyr Stephen.
213.1The official record of 26 September 426 at Hippo, in which Augustine, now old, names the presbyter Eraclius as his successor before clergy and people, who acclaim him.
213.2Augustine asks the people to pray that God confirm the choice of Eraclius and notes that the proceedings are being officially recorded.
213.3Augustine asks for the decision to be confirmed by the record and by prayer, and the people acclaim Eraclius as their future bishop.
213.4Augustine explains that Eraclius will not be ordained bishop during his lifetime, since his own ordination as co-bishop with Valerius had broken a canon of Nicaea.
213.5Augustine asks the people to bring their business to Eraclius instead of him, so that he may devote himself to the Scriptures, as councils had earlier asked.
213.6Augustine hands his routine duties to Eraclius so that he may give his remaining time to Scripture, and asks the people to sign the record, which they acclaim.
213.7Augustine closes the assembly by asking the people to turn to the Eucharist and pray for the church, for himself, and for Eraclius.
214.1Augustine writes to the monks of Hadrumetum, having heard that some deny free will and judgment according to works, and approves those who hold that grace helps free will.
214.2Augustine urges the monks to agree, holding both grace, by which Christ saves the world, and free will, by which he judges it, while denying that anything good can be done without grace.
214.3Augustine explains that his letter to Sixtus opposed the Pelagian teaching that grace is given according to merit, since everything that distinguishes a person is received from God.
214.4Augustine explains that good works, prayer, and faith are themselves gifts of God, so that grace precedes merit, though God will still crown good merit at the judgment.
214.5Augustine explains that the monks' haste to return for Easter prevented him from sending fuller documents on the councils against the Pelagians.
214.6Augustine asks that the monk who caused the disturbance be sent to him, noting that Paul's teaching on grace was misunderstood even in apostolic times.
214.7Augustine urges the monks to believe in both free will and grace, showing from Scripture that even understanding is commanded of the will yet given by God.
215.1Augustine tells the monks of Hadrumetum that grace is not given for merit, yet all who can use free will are judged by their works, while unbaptized infants are condemned for original sin alone.
215.2Augustine sends the monks his book on grace and free will together with the African councils' letters and the popes' replies condemning Pelagianism.
215.3Augustine reports reading with the monks Cyprian's On the Lord's Prayer and his own letter to Sixtus, both showing that good living and conversion are gifts of grace.
215.4Augustine urges the monks to hold the Catholic faith that neither denies free will nor credits it with any good apart from grace.
215.5Augustine shows from Proverbs 4 that Scripture both commands the will and promises that God will make its paths straight.
215.6Augustine explains that God "knows" the right-hand ways because he made them, as good works prepared by him, while the wicked make their own left-hand ways.
215.7Augustine explains that turning aside to the right means ascribing one's good works to oneself rather than to God.
215.8Augustine concludes that relying on one's own will turns aside to the right, while abusing grace as license turns aside to the left, and asks that the monk Florus be sent to him.
216.1Valentinus, abbot of Hadrumetum, replies to Augustine with humble thanks for his letter and book, apologizing for the monks who had come to him without leave.
216.2Valentinus explains how a copy of Augustine's letter to Sixtus, brought by Florus, was read to unlearned monks without his knowledge and disturbed some of them.
216.3Valentinus reports that five or so monks disputed the book, refused to wait for Bishop Evodius's explanation, and left for Hippo, after which peace returned.
216.4Valentinus professes the monastery's faith that grace heals the free will now, while at the judgment God will reward each according to works, a faith he says Florus also holds.
216.5Valentinus rejects the claim that doing good lies in one's own power, insisting that free will is healed and helped daily by the grace of Christ.
216.6Valentinus asks Augustine's prayers, commends Florus to him, and asks him to instruct the monastery on its rule.
217.1Augustine writes to Vitalis of Carthage, who held that the beginning of faith comes from our own will, arguing that this view contradicts the Church's prayers for the right faith of others.
217.2Augustine ironically challenges Vitalis to reject the liturgical prayers for unbelievers, catechumens, and the faithful, and Cyprian's book on the Lord's Prayer, if he holds that faith comes from the human will alone.
217.3Augustine argues from Paul's prayer and from Psalm 37:23 that the good will to believe is itself God's gift, not something that precedes it.
217.4Augustine identifies Vitalis's view, that grace consists only in teaching to which the will freely assents, with the Pelagian position that Pelagius himself had renounced at Diospolis.
217.5Augustine argues that if grace were only teaching applied to free will, prayer for the conversion and perseverance of others would be pointless, and that whatever must be asked of God is given by God.
217.6Augustine cites Cyprian's interpretation of "Thy will be done on earth as in heaven" as a prayer for the conversion of unbelievers, which would be empty if God did not convert their wills.
217.7Augustine warns that those who deny God's work in the will only pretend to pray and give thanks.
217.8Augustine argues from Colossians 1:12–13 that God frees the will from the power of darkness, so that believers come to faith by free will and yet by grace.
217.9Augustine explains that the power of darkness is the devil, to whom humanity fell subject in Adam, and from which baptized infants are rescued, the freedom of their will appearing when they reach the age of reason.
217.10Augustine says the devil, unable to repent, works unbelief in the unbelieving and permits seemingly good works among them, such as Roman virtues, which without faith do not please God.
217.11Augustine explains that Christ binds the devil and frees the will of his chosen to believe, and that this is the work of grace, not of nature or of the law.
217.12Augustine insists that grace is not the law or teaching but God's gift for each act, which alone makes teaching profitable.
217.13Augustine argues that God's answering prayers for unbelievers' conversion refutes the view that grace is mere nature or teaching, since we pray for the healing of their will.
217.14Augustine explains that believers pray for perseverance, and that God mixes those who will fall with those who will persevere so that all may walk in humble fear.
217.15Augustine leaves open why some receive grace for a time and then fall, while insisting on holding firm to what is certain in the Catholic faith.
217.16Augustine sets out twelve propositions of Catholic faith on original sin, grace, judgment, infant baptism, free will, and prayer for unbelievers.
217.17Augustine explains that his twelve propositions address only whether grace precedes or follows the human will, and that agreement on them would end the dispute.
217.18Augustine argues that grace given to infants and condemned Pelagian formulas show that grace is neither given for the will's merit nor identical with nature or law.
217.19Augustine interprets "God wills all to be saved" as meaning that all who are saved are saved by his will, citing infants who die unbaptized despite their parents' efforts.
217.20Augustine argues that because grace is withheld justly from others in the same condition, those who receive it receive it freely and not for any merit of will.
217.21Augustine argues that perseverance to the end is God's gift, since God controls the end of each life.
217.22Augustine rejects the view that God gives or withholds grace from dying infants according to foreseen future wills, since all are judged by deeds done in the body, as Cyprian's On Mortality presupposes.
217.23Augustine argues that it is the opponents of grace who undermine free will, and that God prepares the will by hidden inspiration, not merely by teaching.
217.24Augustine argues from the churches' praise of God for Paul's conversion that God himself turns unwilling persecutors into willing believers.
217.25Augustine says the twelve propositions show that grace precedes the will, and invites Vitalis to reply if he rejects any of them.
217.26Augustine asks whether Vitalis will forbid the Church's prayers for unbelievers or refuse to say Amen to them, or accuse Cyprian of error.
217.27Augustine cites Paul's prayers for the Jews and his request that the Thessalonians pray for the word's progress, arguing that God himself makes unbelievers believe in answer to prayer.
217.28Augustine concludes that God removes the heart of stone and prepares the will, as both prayer for unbelievers and thanksgiving for believers show.
217.29Augustine distinguishes Vitalis's view from full Pelagianism: Vitalis grants that grace aids believers but holds that the beginning of faith comes from ourselves, which the Church's prayers refute.
217.30Augustine concludes that if Vitalis accepts prayer and thanksgiving for the conversion of unbelievers, he must confess that God's grace precedes and changes the human will.
218.1Augustine rejoices at the young Palatinus's turning to the religious life and offers him encouragement.
218.2Augustine urges Palatinus to persevere by trusting not in his own strength but in God, who gives the love poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
218.3Augustine tells Palatinus that prayer itself shows our need of God's help to resist temptation, and that the beginning and completion of the good life are God's gifts.
218.4Augustine sends Palatinus his parents' greetings and thanks him for the gift of haircloth, a reminder of humility in prayer.
219.1Augustine and other African bishops tell the bishops of Gaul that they have received and corrected the monk Leporius, who had denied that God was made man and so introduced a fourth person into the Trinity.
219.2The African bishops say that the Gallic bishops' condemnation and their own gentle correction were both God's work in healing Leporius, and ask that he be received back.
219.3The African bishops explain that Leporius, fearing change in God, had separated the Son of Man from the Son of God, but now confesses Christ as one, God and man, with both natures unchanged, and has signed a retraction.
220.1Augustine writes to Count Boniface by the deacon Paul, wishing to speak not of his power or bodily safety but of the salvation Christ promised.
220.2Augustine explains that he never found an opportunity to counsel Boniface for his soul's sake and had not dared to write during his dangers.
220.3Augustine reminds Boniface that after his first wife's death he wished to become a monk, and was persuaded instead to defend the churches while living in continence.
220.4Augustine reproaches Boniface for remarrying after vowing continence, for letting Arians baptize his daughter and rebaptize consecrated women, and for reported concubines.
220.5Augustine urges Boniface to repent without delay, saying that love of worldly goods brought him into his present plight.
220.6Augustine argues that Boniface's armed followers force him to feed their worldly desires by doing what God forbids, citing 1 John 2:15–17.
220.7Augustine laments that Africa is being ravaged by barbarians unresisted, although Boniface, now count, had once subdued them as a tribune.
220.8Augustine urges Boniface, whatever wrongs he has suffered from the court, not to repay evil for good or evil for evil, but to love his enemies as Christ commands.
220.9Augustine says he can give no worldly advice for Boniface's safety, but counsels him according to God to stop loving the world and to repent.
220.10Augustine tells Boniface to pray to be delivered from his necessities by conquering his desires and to use worldly goods as not using them.
220.11Augustine contrasts earthly goods given to good and bad alike with eternal goods given only to the good, and urges alms, prayer and fasting.
220.12Augustine says that since Boniface's wife has not consented to continence he must at least keep conjugal chastity, love God rather than the world, and seek peace.
221.1The deacon Quodvultdeus of Carthage opens his request to Augustine, emboldened by Augustine's known kindness.
221.2Quodvultdeus asks Augustine for a handbook of all heresies since Christ, with their errors, their baptism, and the Church's answers.
221.3Quodvultdeus asks not for full refutations but for a brief summary of each heresy and the Catholic answer, useful to learned and unlearned clergy alike.
221.4Quodvultdeus apologizes for burdening the aged Augustine and begs him by Christ to write for the untaught.
222.1Augustine tells Quodvultdeus that he has already written of the difficulty of a work on all heresies and now explains it.
222.2Augustine notes that Philastrius counted 156 heresies and Epiphanius 80, showing how hard it is to define heresy, and offers to send Epiphanius's book for translation at Carthage.
222.3Augustine commends the bearer, a subdeacon, and asks about Theodosius, who exposed some Manichees, and about the bishops' departure.
223.1Quodvultdeus acknowledges Augustine's reply on the difficulty of the task but trusts in God's grace and Augustine's gifts.
223.2Quodvultdeus objects that Philastrius and Epiphanius give no answers to each heresy, are not brief, are in Greek, and omit later heresies.
223.3Quodvultdeus begs Augustine to write the work himself rather than refer him to Greek authors, promising to keep knocking.
224.1Augustine tells Quodvultdeus that he has reread his request but has been prevented from beginning the work on heresies.
224.2Augustine explains that he is answering Julian's eight books and has finished two books of Retractations covering 232 works, and plans to begin the work on heresies alongside.
224.3Augustine asks Quodvultdeus to pray for him and to help the bearer in his business.
225.1Prosper of Aquitaine writes to Augustine to report a matter harmful to the faith.
225.2Prosper reports that monks at Marseilles reject Augustine's teaching on the calling of the elect, and that On Rebuke and Grace has hardened their opposition.
225.3Prosper sets out the Marseilles monks' position: grace is offered to all, predestination rests on foreknowledge of faith, and Augustine's doctrine breeds fatalism and despair and is new.
225.4Prosper describes how some at Marseilles reduce prevenient grace to the grace of creation and make the beginning of salvation lie in the natural will.
225.5Prosper reports how the Marseilles monks explain the different fates of infants and unevangelized nations by God's foreknowledge of their future merits.
225.6Prosper reports that the Marseilles monks hold Christ died for all, reject a fixed number of the elect, and make human obedience precede grace.
225.7Prosper says the opponents' standing, some now bishops, silences resistance, and begs Augustine to explain the obscure questions clearly.
225.8Prosper lists questions for Augustine: the danger of the error, grace and free choice, the relation of foreknowledge and purpose, exhortation, and the earlier fathers' view of predestination by foreknowledge.
225.9Prosper hopes Augustine's reply will win over the opponents, mentions Hilary of Arles, and urges him to write again on grace.
226.1Hilary, a layman of Gaul, introduces his report to Augustine on teachings contrary to the truth.
226.2Hilary reports that the Gallic opponents hold that the fallen can still will to be healed and believe, and that grace then helps those who begin to will.
226.3Hilary reports that the opponents appeal to Augustine's own earlier writings (Letter 102 against Porphyry and the Exposition of Propositions from Romans) for election based on foreseen faith.
226.4Hilary reports that the opponents reduce predestination to foreknowledge of faith, deny that perseverance is given irresistibly, and reject Wisdom 4:11 as non-canonical.
226.5Hilary reports the objection that exhortation and rebuke are useless if the elect and the rejected are fixed and nothing in man can respond.
226.6Hilary reports that the opponents object to Augustine's contrast between Adam's grace and the gift of perseverance to the elect, saying it produces despair.
226.7Hilary reports that the opponents deny a fixed number of the elect, interpret 1 Tim 2:4 of all without exception, and dispute Augustine's use of texts on Saul and David.
226.8Hilary reports that the opponents dismiss the argument from infants, appeal to earlier authorities, and ask why the doctrine needed to be raised at all.
226.9Hilary explains that he sends only a summary, notes the high rank of some opponents, and says they admire Augustine in everything but this.
226.10Hilary asks for Augustine's Retractations and On Grace and Free Choice, mentions the enclosed letter of Prosper, and asks prayers for his brother and wife who have vowed continence.
227.1Augustine tells Alypius of the baptism of Gabinianus and of the physician Dioscorus, converted after his daughter's healing and successive blindness and paralysis.
228.1Augustine reminds Bishop Honoratus that he has already advised, in a letter to Quodvultdeus, that clergy must not abandon their people during the barbarian invasion.
228.2Augustine argues that Christ's command to flee persecution applies when a minister is personally sought, not when the whole people is endangered and needs its clergy.
228.3Augustine says that clergy who stay with their people and suffer lay down their lives for the brothers, as 1 John 3:16 commands.
228.4Augustine grants that flight from barbarians is acceptable for those without church office, but says the minister who stays bears greater fruit of love than a martyr who fled for himself.
228.5Augustine answers Honoratus's fear of massacre and torture: the clergy may leave only when their people have left, and bishops who deserted their flocks in Spain did wrong.
228.6Augustine reconciles the command to flee with the condemnation of the hireling: ministers may flee only if no people remain or others can minister, as with Paul and Athanasius.
228.7Augustine urges fearful clergy to fear spiritual ruin of their flocks more than bodily harm, adding that rape without consent does not violate chastity.
228.8Augustine describes the crowds seeking baptism, reconciliation and communion in a crisis, and the eternal loss if the clergy have fled.
228.9Augustine shows that the presence of ministers in danger benefits the people, citing Paul's example of seeking others' good.
228.10Augustine allows a minister to flee to preserve himself for the Church only when others remain, as Athanasius did and as David's men asked of him.
228.11Augustine considers the case where only clergy are hunted, and compares the Church to a ship whose crew and helmsman must not desert it in common danger.
228.12Augustine suggests that if clergy dispute who should stay and who flee, the matter be decided by lot, and warns against anyone judging himself too valuable to stay.
228.13Augustine advises clergy to tell their people they stay for the people's sake, and to leave only if the people leave.
228.14Augustine concludes that flight is permitted only if the flock is not left without ministry, and commends prayer and the example of those who stayed.
229.1Augustine greets Darius, the imperial envoy, whom he knows through the bishops Urbanus and Novatus, as a peacemaker.
229.2Augustine praises Darius for ending war by words rather than the sword, asks for a reply, and greets the pledge of peace he has obtained.
230.1Darius replies to Augustine, wishing he could have met him and heard his voice in person.
230.2Darius rejoices in being commended to Augustine by two bishops and in his letter, and prays to live up to Augustine's praise.
230.3Darius says he has at least postponed war, hopes for lasting peace through Augustine's blessing, and asks his prayers for the empire.
230.4Darius confesses his longing to keep writing, says Augustine's writings freed him from lingering pagan superstition, and asks for the Confessions.
230.5Darius recalls the story of King Abgar's letter to Christ and asks Augustine to intercede daily for his sins.
230.6Darius asks Augustine to write again, sends greetings from his son Verimodus, and sends medicines by the presbyter Lazarus.
231.1Augustine replies to Darius that words cannot express how much his letter delighted him.
231.2Augustine says that he did enjoy Darius's eloquence and praise, but neither was the chief cause of his delight.
231.3Augustine discusses the love of praise, citing Themistocles, Ennius, and Horace, and distinguishes seeking truth from vanity in human praise.
231.4Augustine explains, from Paul, that praise should be sought not for oneself but for the good of those who praise, and says Darius's praise spurs him to become what he is praised for.
231.5Augustine says the chief delight of Darius's letter was gaining him as a friend, whose commendation will spread his writings against paganism.
231.6Augustine sends Darius the Confessions, telling him to see there what he really was and to praise God, and begs his prayers.
231.7Augustine sends Darius several other works, asks for his judgment, and thanks him for gifts for his health and library.
232.1Augustine asks the pagan council of Madaura why they greeted him “in the Lord” while still worshiping idols, unless they mean to mock him.
232.2Augustine says the Madaurans' Christian greeting and closing must be either sincere, in which case nothing bars them from the Church, or mockery of Christ's name.
232.3Augustine argues from fulfilled prophecy: the dispersion of the Jews, the spread of the gospel, heresies and schisms, and the fall of idolatry and conversion of the emperors.
232.4Augustine warns that the judgment foretold in Scripture will surely come like the rest, and no one can plead ignorance, since everyone speaks of Christ.
232.5Augustine sketches for the Madaurans the Trinity, the Father as invisible Beginning, the equal Word, and the Holy Spirit as their communion, accessible only to the humble.
232.6Augustine explains that the Word became man to cure pride by humility, and that Christ crucified, confirmed by miracles, has conquered the world.
232.7Augustine urges the Madaurans to wake up, mentions helping Florentius, and warns them to fear Christ the judge if they meant to mock.
233.1Augustine asks the pagan Longinianus how he thinks God should be worshiped and whether Christ's way is the only way to the happy life.
234.1The pagan Longinianus replies with elaborate compliments, appealing to Socratic, Orphic and Hermetic precepts, and calls Augustine a uniquely good man.
234.2Longinianus says the way to God is a life of virtue with the help of the gods and purification by the ancient rites and abstinence.
234.8Longinianus declines to say what he thinks of Christ, since he does not know, and asks Augustine to instruct him by letter.
235.1Augustine welcomes Longinianus's reserve about Christ and asks him first to clarify his view of the ancient rites, quoting his letter back to him.
235.2Augustine asks Longinianus whether the ancient rites purify the good life, produce it, complete it, or form part of it.
236.1Augustine informs Bishop Deuterius that Victorinus, an aged subdeacon of Malliana, has confessed to being a Manichaean Hearer.
236.2Augustine describes Manichaean Hearers and Elect and their doctrines: docetism, rejection of the Old Testament, the soul as part of God, and God's mixture with darkness.
236.3Augustine asks Deuterius to depose Victorinus from clerical rank and to admit him to penance only if he names other Manichees in the province.
237.1Augustine tells Bishop Ceretius that the writings he sent are Priscillianist and that Argyrius either met them unawares or is caught in the heresy.
237.2Augustine explains that the hymn ascribed to Christ comes from apocrypha shared by several heresies, which reject the Old Testament and parts of the New, as Manichees reject Acts.
237.3Augustine says the Priscillianists accept all scriptures but twist them, hide their real teaching, and even have a precept permitting perjury to keep it secret.
237.4Augustine refutes the Priscillianist claim that the hymn was kept out of the canon to hide it from carnal men, which implies the canon itself is unspiritual.
237.5Augustine argues that the Priscillianists explain the hymn's “I wish to loose and be loosed” from canonical texts, so the hymn's supposed secret is already open in the canon.
237.6Augustine continues that the Priscillianist interpretations of the hymn do not fit its words and are in any case already plain in Scripture.
237.7Augustine shows that the hymn's “I wish to save and be saved,” as the Priscillianists explain it of baptism, is clearly taught in canonical Scripture.
237.8Augustine lists further lines of the hymn and the canonical texts the Priscillianists use to explain them, concluding that their explanations are a cover for hidden doctrines.
237.9Augustine concludes that the Priscillianist explanations are an evasion, condemns the hymn's line making Christ a mocker, and urges Ceretius to heal the sheep they have wounded.
238.1Augustine writes to the Arian count Pascentius, setting out his faith in writing since Pascentius refused to have their debate recorded.
238.2Augustine reproaches Pascentius for breaking their agreement to have the debate recorded and notes that Pascentius varied his creed each time he repeated it.
238.3Augustine recounts that Pascentius's creed, when written, omitted “Father” and “incomprehensible.”
238.4Augustine recounts that Pascentius anathematized Arius and Eunomius but demanded that the word homoousios be shown in Scripture, while Augustine insisted the thing matters more than the word.
238.5Augustine recounts how an Arian admitted “unbegotten” is not in Scripture yet rightly said, which Augustine applied to homoousios.
238.6Augustine recounts that Pascentius first said “unbegotten” would injure God, then defended it, tore up his written creed, and agreed to a recorded afternoon debate.
238.7Augustine recounts that at the afternoon meeting Pascentius refused to dictate his words, accusing the bishops of preparing a false charge.
238.8Augustine recounts that Pascentius omitted “God the Son,” refused to have the words recorded, and mocked Augustine's reputation.
238.9Augustine argues that Pascentius's refusal of stenographers shows his own fear, not Augustine's, and that such debates should be recorded.
238.10Augustine states his faith in the eternal Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and the rule of reading texts about Christ according to the form of God or the form of a servant.
238.11Augustine argues that texts on God's sole immortality apply to the whole Trinity, and that if those joined are called one body or one spirit, Father, Son and Spirit are much more one God.
238.12Augustine argues by analogy with soul and body and the inner and outer man that Father and Son, being one in nature, are not two gods but one God.
238.13Augustine argues that if the unity of the first believers made them one soul and heart, the Father and Son, eternally one in nature, are all the more one God.
238.14Augustine explains that the names Father, Son and Spirit signify relations, not different substances, and that confusing the form of a servant with the form of God leads to error.
238.15Augustine explains that “spirit” as a name of nature applies to Father, Son and Spirit alike, and to all incorporeal natures, while “Holy Spirit” names the relation to Father and Son.
238.16Augustine appeals to the peace of God that surpasses understanding, which unites Father, Son and Spirit far more than it united the first believers, and urges a peaceful search of Scripture.
238.17Augustine explains that the one Christ is both Son of God and Son of Man, so the Son of God is said to be crucified in his human weakness.
238.18Augustine argues from Deut 6:4, Thomas's confession and 1 Cor 8:5–6 that Father and Son are together the one Lord God.
238.19Augustine argues from Rom 11:34–36 that “from him, through him and in him are all things” refers to one Lord, Father and Son together.
238.20Augustine argues from Eph 4:5–6 that “one Lord” refers to Christ without excluding the Father, so that Father, Son and Spirit, though distinct, are the one true Lord God.
238.21Augustine argues from 1 Cor 6:19–20 that the Holy Spirit is God, and shows that texts seeming to rank the persons would prove too much.
238.22Augustine argues that John 17:3 should be read as including Christ as the one true God, and that the Father is true by begetting the Truth, not by sharing in it.
238.23Augustine rejects the Arian claim that the Son before the incarnation was visible and corruptible, citing the Wisdom of Solomon on divine Wisdom.
238.24Augustine argues from Wis 7:26 that the Father was never without the Son, who is eternally begotten, and confesses the limits of language before Isa 53:8.
238.25Augustine challenges Pascentius to find Scripture calling different substances “one,” and cites the argument that God either would not or could not beget an equal Son.
238.26Augustine says he has signed his statement of faith and invites Pascentius to reply in writing, signed or unsigned.
238.27Augustine warns Pascentius that to defeat or seem to defeat him is easy and that flatterers will applaud a powerful man.
238.28Augustine argues from John 10:30 and 17:11, 20–23 that “one” is said only of those of the same substance, so the Father and Son are homoousios.
238.29Augustine concludes that Scripture calls things simply “one” only when they share one substance, urges Pascentius to let the truth conquer him willingly, and signs the letter.
239.1Augustine tells Pascentius that the creed he recited is common to both, and asks him to state and defend from Scripture the Arian points on which they differ.
239.2Augustine repeats that Pascentius's refusal to have the debate recorded shows his lack of confidence, not Augustine's.
239.3Augustine states the distinctively Catholic point, three distinct persons who are one God, and offers to reply in writing to any objection.
240.1Pascentius replies scornfully, likening Augustine's view to muddy water and a crooked tree, asking which of the three is the one God, and proposing an unrecorded meeting.
241.1Augustine answers Pascentius's insults by pointing to his broken agreement, and denies that he believes in a “three-formed person,” since the one deity makes Father, Son and Spirit one God.
241.2Augustine asks Pascentius to explain 1 Cor 6:16–17, which shows unity without a “two-formed” spirit, and agrees to meet only if their words are recorded.
242.1Augustine thanks the Arian Elpidius for trying to correct him and for sending an Arian bishop's treatise, and wishes him true knowledge from God, quoting 1 Cor 2:12–14.
242.2Augustine argues from John 1:3 that the Son, through whom all things were made, cannot himself have been made.
242.3Augustine reasons from John 1:3 that the Word was neither made through himself nor without himself, and so was not made but begotten.
242.4Augustine says the Son's generation cannot be declared, but Phil 2:6 calls him equal to God, and only the pure in heart can see this.
242.5Augustine criticizes the Arian treatise's claim to set forth the “naked truth,” citing 1 Cor 13:12, and excuses the length of his letter by Cicero's example.
243.1Augustine writes to Laetus, a young monk tempted to leave, urging him as Christ's recruit to build the tower and fight like the king in the Gospel parable.
243.2Augustine quotes Luke 14:26–33, where the parables of the tower and the king lead to the demand to renounce all one's own.
243.3Augustine explains that renouncing all one's own includes hating private family ties, since a mother as mother is temporal, but as a sister in Christ is shared eternally.
243.4Augustine tells Laetus that his mother hinders him only as his private mother, not as a sister in the Church, and that he must also hate private affection in his own soul.
243.5Augustine explains that hating and losing one's parents, like hating one's own soul, means killing the fleshly affection that binds them to the world, not harming them.
243.6Augustine contrasts Laetus's mother, who holds him back from God's service, with the mother of the Maccabees and the Spartan mothers.
243.7Augustine urges Laetus to kill the fleshly affection his mother appeals to, while still showing her filial gratitude where higher duties do not call.
243.8Augustine reminds Laetus that the Church is mother to him and his mother alike, and needs his help against heresy and lukewarmness, as Christ endured all for him.
243.9Augustine cites Christ's answer “Who is my mother?” as an example of putting heavenly kinship above earthly ties, while noting that Mary also did the Father's will.
243.10Augustine urges Laetus to repay his mother with spiritual benefits but not let her draw him back, comparing her appeals to Eve and the serpent's cunning.
243.11Augustine urges Laetus to take up his cross, the mortality of the flesh, and crucify it so as to follow Christ.
243.12Augustine tells Laetus to give his family estate to his mother and household, then not let family troubles hold him back, for ordered love puts greater things first.
244.1Augustine writes to Chrisimus, who in grief over losses was rumored to have contemplated suicide, to remind him that earthly goods cannot compare with heavenly ones.
244.2Augustine urges Chrisimus to take courage, since God uses losses to free us from love of fragile things, and mentions a letter to the count.
245.1Augustine advises Bishop Possidius not to forbid married women all ornaments, but to forbid uncovered hair and cosmetics, since true adornment is good character.
245.2Augustine condemns amulets and superstitious earrings as service of demons, and declines to advise ordaining a man baptized among the Donatists.
246.1Augustine promises Lampadius a fuller reply on fate and fortune, warning that the doctrine of fate leads people to defend their sins.
246.2Augustine argues that all law and discipline presuppose that the will causes sin, and that astrologers themselves punish their wives rather than blame the stars.
246.3Augustine argues that anyone who blames fate refutes himself by punishing and rewarding others, and promises a fuller book if Lampadius wishes.
247.1Augustine rebukes the landowner Romulus for demanding a second payment from poor tenants who had already paid his agent.
247.2Augustine urges Romulus to have mercy on his own soul, and reproaches him for leaving after Sunday worship without seeing him.
247.3Augustine refutes Romulus's excuses, showing that the tenants could not tell what he had ordered and must not be made to pay twice.
247.4Augustine closes by saying he fears more for Romulus than for the tenants, and leaves the outcome to God.
248.1Augustine consoles Sebastianus, grieved by sinners who abandon God's law, saying such grief is the persecution of the godly and urging perseverance; Alypius adds a greeting.
249.1Augustine recommends to the deacon Restitutus Tyconius's treatment of tolerating evil in the Church for the sake of unity, while pointing him to Scripture itself.
250.1Augustine asks the young bishop Auxilius by what right he excommunicated Count Classicianus together with his whole household, since spiritual punishment binds souls and each soul answers for its own sin.
250.2Augustine says he has never dared to excommunicate a whole household, since innocents would be punished and some might die unbaptized, and asks Auxilius for his reasons.
250.3Augustine urges Auxilius, if Classicianus did no wrong, to withdraw the sentence, admitting that bishops too can act in anger, and to restore peace.
251.1Augustine tells Pancarius, a landowner, that charges against the presbyter Secundinus will be heard only from Catholics, and asks him not to let the presbyter's house or church be harmed.
252.1Augustine tells Felix that he cannot hand over an orphan girl entrusted to the church without consulting her guardian.
253.1Augustine advises Bishop Benenatus that, if he arranges the orphan girl's marriage, it should be with a Catholic household.
254.1Augustine explains to Benenatus that the orphan girl is too young to be promised, may wish to be a nun, has relatives and perhaps a mother to be consulted, and so cannot yet be betrothed.
255.1Augustine tells the pagan Rusticus that he cannot promise the orphan girl to his son, especially since a Christian girl could be given only to a Christian and his son is still a pagan.
256.1Augustine answers Christinus's request for a letter, contrasting the easy fruitful way of God that people fear with the hard barren way of the world they endure.
257.1Augustine thanks Orontius for his letter and expresses hope that he will share in the source of holiness, God's grace.
258.1Augustine tells his old friend Marcianus that by Cicero's definition their friendship was incomplete until they agreed on divine things as well as human.
258.2Augustine argues that without agreement in divine things there is no true agreement even in human things, so Marcianus is only now truly his friend.
258.3Augustine explains that while he loved iniquity he was his own enemy, so Marcianus, sharing his worldly aims, could not then be a true friend.
258.4Augustine says the two great commandments supply agreement on divine and human things, making his friendship with Marcianus true and eternal.
258.5Augustine urges Marcianus to enroll for baptism, citing Terence and Virgil's Fourth Eclogue, which he says may echo a Sibylline prophecy of Christ.
259.1Augustine tells the widower Cornelius, who asked for a letter of consolation praising his wife, that he must first live chastely, since his own conduct is unlike hers.
259.2Augustine defends his severity toward Cornelius, adapting Cicero's words against Catiline to his pastoral duty.
259.3Augustine rebukes Cornelius, a baptized old friend from his Manichaean days, for keeping many concubines while asking praise for his chaste dead wife.
259.4Augustine offers to praise Cornelius's wife Cypriana once Cornelius pays the “fee” of becoming chaste himself.
259.5Augustine argues from the parable of the rich man and Lazarus that Cornelius's chaste wife would not want him to share the punishment of adulterers, and urges him to love her by amending his life.
260.1Audax praises Augustine extravagantly, complains that his letter was too short, asks for more of his wisdom, and adds five lines of verse.
261.1Augustine replies to Audax that he lacks leisure for long letters and is himself a beggar at the treasure of wisdom.
261.2Augustine rejects Audax's titles for him except “dispenser of salvation,” noting that salvation is dispensed through good and bad ministers alike.
261.3Augustine directs Audax to his longer works and invites him to visit.
261.4Augustine notes playfully that the last line of Audax's poem has seven feet.
261.5Augustine says he does not have Jerome's Psalter from the Hebrew, and that he only corrected Latin Psalter manuscripts from the Greek.
262.1Augustine tells Ecdicia that her husband, who had vowed continence with her, has fallen into adultery because she failed to treat him with conjugal obedience.
262.2Augustine notes that Ecdicia wrongly took up continence before her husband agreed, contrary to Paul's teaching on the marital debt in 1 Cor 7.
262.3Augustine says that since her husband later agreed to continence, Ecdicia should persevere in their joint vow even though he has fallen away.
262.4Augustine says that continence did not end their marriage, so Ecdicia should have done nothing with her property without her husband's consent.
262.5Augustine relates that the husband abandoned continence in anger after Ecdicia gave away almost all her property to two wandering monks without his knowledge.
262.6Augustine tells Ecdicia that losing her husband's soul outweighs the good of her alms, since rescuing a man from the devil is the greater mercy.
262.7Augustine explains that a wife may not dispose of her goods as she pleases, since she belongs to her husband, citing 1 Pet 3:5–6.
262.8Augustine says the husband rightly wished to provide for their son, and that Ecdicia should have planned almsgiving together with him and deferred to his authority.
262.9Augustine says Ecdicia should not have adopted widow's dress against her husband's will, since matronly dress is compatible with religious life.
262.10Augustine cites Esther, who kept a humble heart under royal attire while submitting to a pagan husband, as an example for Ecdicia.
262.11Augustine urges Ecdicia to pray for her husband, ask his pardon, and promise obedience if he returns to continence, noting that their son is legally in the father's power.
263.1Augustine accepts and wears the tunic the virgin Sapida had made for her late brother, the deacon Timothy, and urges her to seek greater consolations.
263.2Augustine consoles Sapida over her brother Timothy's death: their love is stored safely with Christ, and she should set her mind, as her name suggests, on things above.
263.3Augustine says Christians may grieve for the dead, as Christ wept for Lazarus, but not long or like those without hope.
263.4Augustine assures Sapida that her brother's body will rise, not a hair perishing, and that he is now clothed with immortality, a better garment than the tunic she made.
264.1Augustine tells Maxima that heresies troubling her province were foretold and that God uses the evil of the wicked to prove and train the good.
264.2Augustine says God permits the wicked to train his people, commends Maxima's grief and vigilance, and urges her to keep those around her in the right faith.
264.3Augustine confirms Maxima's faith that the Son took a complete human nature, rational soul and flesh, without sin, and asks for the heretics' writings to refute them.
265.1Augustine replies to Seleuciana about a Novatianist who claimed Peter was not baptized though the other apostles were.
265.2Augustine explains that Peter's repentance for his denial was not the formal penance of the Church's penitents.
265.3Augustine explains that the apostles had not yet received the baptism of the Spirit when Peter denied Christ, but that they had been baptized with water, as baptism is not to be despised.
265.4Augustine argues that since Christ made baptism necessary, the apostles must have been baptized even though Scripture does not record it, as martyrdom alone substitutes for baptism.
265.5Augustine argues from John 3:22, 4:1–3 and 13:10 that Christ baptized through his disciples, who must themselves have been baptized, Peter included.
265.6Augustine says the claim that the apostles gave penance instead of baptism, with no penance after baptism, is foreign to Catholic faith, whether or not Novatianists hold it.
265.7Augustine distinguishes penance before baptism, as in Acts 2:38, from the public penance of baptized sinners, as in 2 Cor 12:21 and the case of Simon Magus.
265.8Augustine describes the daily penance of the faithful for small sins through the Lord's Prayer, fasting and almsgiving, comparing small sins to water seeping into a ship.
266.1Augustine writes to the young consecrated virgin Florentina, at her mother's report of her wish, inviting her to ask him whatever she wishes to know.
266.2Augustine tells Florentina he is no perfect teacher, that it is better to be taught by God, and that learning is safer for humility than teaching.
266.3Augustine notes the danger of pride for teachers, citing Paul's thorn, Christ's warning against being called Rabbi, and John the Baptist's humility.
266.4Augustine invites Florentina to ask what she wishes, reminding her that God is the inner teacher who gives the growth.
267.1Augustine tells Fabiola that true presence lies in knowing one another's minds rather than in seeing bodies, and that each is most present to himself through conscience.
268.1Augustine tells the congregation of Hippo that he borrowed seventeen solidi to pay the tax debt of Fascius, who had taken refuge in the church, on condition that the people be asked if Fascius failed to repay.
268.2Augustine asks the congregation to repay the loan for Fascius as an act of charity to a brother in the faith, citing Gal 6:9–10 and 2 Cor 9:6.
268.3Augustine says the presbyters will make up any shortfall from church funds, but hopes the people will give cheerfully as fruit of their faith.
269.1Augustine excuses himself to Bishop Nobilius from attending a church dedication because of winter and old age.
270.1An unknown writer tells a friend, apparently a bishop, of his sorrow at missing him at Leges, asks his prayers, and points him to the day of judgment.

About this work

Author: Augustine of Hippo
Attribution: authentic · Augustine's correspondence as collected in Goldbacher's edition (270 letters in CSEL 34, 44, 57). The collection includes letters sent to Augustine and a few by others (e.g. from Nebridius, Paulinus of Nola, Jerome, Publicola, Nectarius, Evodius, Volusianus, Marcellinus, Pope Innocent I).
Standing: Honoured by the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions. Honoured as a saint or in a church calendar by: Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant.
Older English translation: Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 1 (1886) (public domain, at CCEL; for comparison: our translation is made from the original first and checked against it afterwards) · J. G. Cunningham's translation; NPNF¹ 1 includes 168 of the letters, not all.
Date: ca. 386–430 (approximate)
Written at: Hippo Regius, Africa Proconsularis (North Africa) (probable)
Language: Latin
Genre: letter
Reference system: letter.section, in Goldbacher's numbering of the letters and his running section numbers within each letter (CSEL 34, 44, 57). The digital text does not preserve the traditional letter.chapter division, only Migne's chapter numbers as unusable Roman milestones. A letter with no section divisions is cited by its number alone. Letters 92A, 135A, 171A, 173A, 202A, and 250A (Divjak's additions, with non-numeric division ids) are not staged.
SBL abbreviation: Ep.
Clavis: CPL 262 (not yet checked)
Text from: Alois Goldbacher, ed., S. Aureli Augustini Hipponiensis episcopi epistulae, CSEL 34.1, 34.2, 44, 57 (Prague: Tempsky; Vienna: Tempsky; Leipzig: Freytag, 1895–1911) (Printed edition in the public domain; digital text CC BY-SA 4.0)
Critical editions: Johannes Divjak, ed., Epistulae ex duobus codicibus nuper in lucem prolatae, CSEL 88 (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1981) (cited, not reproduced)
CTS URN: urn:cts:latinLit:stoa0040.stoa011

Letters

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About this work